Are moral values objectively real?

[momo666]

I have delayed my response cause I saw there were some comments addressed to you and I did not want to put you in the position of answering too much at once.

If our "physical" senses are not on trial, then our moral senses shouldn't be either. That's the argument, in a nutshell.

But you still haven't explained this "sense" you are talking about. You feeling that killing children is wrong is no more special than me feeling infinity is impossible. Both are extrapolations feeded to us, in part by the subconsious and in part by reasoning. The translation of the senses by our brain to form an image is not like that. You are conflating two very different senses.
You need to show how this sense of morality is anything more than a mental process. And yes, seeing is a mental process too. But not all mental procesess are the same. You would not say dreams are somehow detections of a plane beyond us where dragons are real so what makes this moral sense, that is so subjetive and dependant on education and your sanity(cause we know of some people who CAN'T feel empathy), anything more than a value judgement ?

Keep in mind this question is immune to the brain in a vat problem. If we were to be brains in a vat, the mental process we call seeing would still be different in nature from the mental process of feeling something is wrong. The external world would be an illusion, yes, but the process by which we detect the external world would still be different in nature than the moral one.
The external world, in this case, would be feeded to us while the moral sense would be of our own making. You need to show how do you differentiate between a subjective value judgement and stimuli reception processing (seeing, hearing etc.). These things are different in nature by a magnitute of ten yet you readily and easily mix them together in a blender.
The act of seeing is not something we do, the translation of light to electrical impulses to the compillation of it by the brain is done automatic. The sense of morality you speak of is, by necessity sans a libertarian view of free will, is vastly different. For you to sense somehting is wrong you need experience (you have to have felt a similar pain at some point OR empathy and here we come back to the biological and evolutionary explanation), education (biologically we may be predisposed to hate gays but is it right ? nature vs. nurture) and post-processing of the information. What I mean by post processing of information is that it is not automatic nor immediate in the way seeing is. Seeing an inocent human being beaten brings up past information (memories) and prompts you to make a value judgement (this is wrong, that human in innocent -even these two claim require a library of former education).

In the same way that I feel like two things cannot have two different paths at once. I feel that is wrong yet Quantum Mechanics tells us that is not the case. Now how and why did I get that so wrong ? Well because me feeling a statement that contains a truth claim is false or wrong is similar, if not identical, to the moral sense you are talking about. I brought up past information (memories- hold on, we never saw that happen) and I made a value judgement (that is wrong because we never saw it, logic tells us this can't happen).
What you are seeing in these two cases (moral feeling, QM feeling) is the same thing. It is a problem solving mechanism and to conflate it with the process of seeing is not only wrong, is wrong on a monumental scale. These things cannot be compared to eachother, they are as different in nature as CPU's are to software.

For you to make a parallel between the sense of sight and this "sense of morality" you need to show what this sense of morality is receiving. In the same way the sense of sight receives photons and translates them to mental images, you need to show what physical quantity this sense receives. If you don't do that, then your parallel is akin to comparing CPU's to software, which is to say, complete nonsense.

Not at all, because the logic is sound even if we assume the physical world as we perceive it ISN'T real. We don't have to rely on any experiences we have in this world (imaginary or otherwise) for the logic of the question to be valid.

Logic is merely the attempt by humans to make sense of the world. I view it and think it is descriptive, not prescriptive. I hope hackenslash can give us his take on this, given his grasp on the subject.
It's a weird thing to say that your logic would still be valid in a world that is an illusion. I can see the need for that assumption though. Even you understand that you still need elements of the world you supposedly are a skeptic of in order for you to make the argument that you are skeptic of the said world.
So I say we need a bit more than a mere assertion. Why would the logic be sound ?

And obviously the moral sense is not going to have a physical feeling to it (unless you count feelings of disgust or something like this maybe?) Nevertheless it's definitely a sense people use frequently (whether they admit it in conversations loosely related to religion or not).

I don't question the moral sense you are talking about. I question its nature/meaning. In the same way me feeling infinity is impossible is not a detection of a "mathematical plane" I don't view this sense differently.
But does it really not have a physical feeling associated with it ? Does't you brain not release chemicals in order to make you "feel guilty" ? In those people who lack empathy that does not happen. They might think it's wrong from an intellectual point of view, depending on their moral philosophy, but clearly the feeling is not there. Is the addition of dopamine some vodoo mojo shtick that is so hard to comprehend or are we just making problems where there are none ?

Absolutely not. Remember that it is first and foremost about that moral sense we tend to heed, and then about DEFENDING our trust in that sense by showing how a parallel attack could be leveled at the belief in the reality of the external world as we sense it.

I've already explained why I think this conflation of vastly different processes is wrong in my earlier paragraph so lets address the trust issue. I can very well trust this sense you are talking about exists. I can even trust what it is feeding me is right.
But that does nothing to decipher its nature. Evolution+nurture is enough to give us some sort of explanation for this sense. It might not be objective in the sense that you view the word but in this case not only would I accept this sense and what it is feeding me but I would even have an explanation for it, something you do not have. After that point on, your brain in a vat attack would not work anymore and you will be left to defend a whole bunch of assertions (the existence of the metaphysical, the moral realm, objective morality etc.etc.)
And this is another problem. Trusting this sense of morality does nothing to the nature of the information. The information it is feeding us could very well be, and it seems to be, a sort of evolutionary-nurture mix that we evolved to keep our species going.
And now I realise we have let a very big pre-supposition slip through our fingers. Why are we even accepting the assertion that this feeling is a "moral sense" ? What arguments have we brought forward to link this feeling to the concept of "objective morality". Answer: none. This is a lesson of carefully defining our terms before we engage in a conversation.
This is important because, without this link, there is no need to invoke the brain in a vat problem. In fact, you can't.

And so I'll gladly concede that your vat apple analogy is hereby defended from one angle, but the question of where you get the SENSE of a vat apple (particularly if it's, as you say, to all senses identical to actual apples) still reveals how the analogy isn't altogether good.

I think I've addressed this in my previous paragraph. I think I have an answer to your question. I get the sense from my mind. You see, in the same way I "sense" the Moon cannot be me, I have this feeling that the apples I am eating are not what they are supposed to be.
I am glad you think this analogy is not good given that, as you say, to all sense my vat apple is identical to actual apples. So the question I will throw back at you is, where do you get the sense that the feeling of seeing an innocent human being beaten has anything to do with the concept we call "objective morality" ?

Thank you for admitting, however, that in both cases we could write the senses off as purely mental. I think that concession further shows how strong this parallel really is.

I don't think that is anything controversial to say, just basic biology. I addressed this in my first paragraph though. Needless to say, we arrive to vastly different conclusions.

Why are we putting "feel" in quotations. Are you trying to be sneaky? It would still be a feeling, whether it was a product of evolution or otherwise. And I'll add that evolution says we evolved EVERY sense we have, and so this further completes the parallel!

I don't know. I guess it just felt right. And OMG how are you not seeing it ? If indeed this sense is a product of evolution, it is no more a detector of "beyond realms" that my feeling that QM just is not right. These are problem solving mechanisms that reflect our experience of how things are at our scale.
We evolving this sense of morality along with the sense of sight does nothing to show how they are similar. It only goes to show how they might both be required for our survival. And if survival is to be the answer, the whole assumption that this sense is a detector of morality falls flat.
We also evolved the sense of flight and fight. But we running along when we see a bush moving does not, in any way, suggest that there is this beyond real that contains scary monsters and our sense of flight and fight is a detector of some kind.

We evolved the sense of SIGHT, for example. Does that mean light didn't exist before we saw it? Or that we should question whether or not it's real because we understand how we came about seeing it? Absolutely none of these attempts to refute belief in objective morality work.

That is because you conflate two vastly different senses. On one hand, you have a stimuli based processing sense. That is, the translation of light to a mental image. That is automatic and done entirely without our conscious self.
On the other hand you have a problem solving mechanism, in the same way mathematics, logic, our expectation of the world and the flight or fight sense are. The problem is that you assume this feeling you are talking about is a detection of a beyond realm when the simplest and most substantive explanation is evolution+nurture. Just like our sense of things not being in two places at once is a problem solving mechanism we have evolved.
Understanding how we came to see light does not mean it did not exist before we saw it. But again you are conflating between different senses. The sense of sight deals with the reception of outside simuli. The sense of morality is an internal problem solving mechanism. And again keep in mind even in a vat brain world this would be the case. In the brain in a vat scenario, the information of sight would be feed to us but the moral sense would still be of a different nature than the sense of sight, it would still be an internalised problem solving mechanism. Positing the brain in a vat parallel actually does nothing to support the assumption that objective morality works. You might say that the prupose is to defend against skepticism but again you can trust the information you are getting fed while at the same time differentiating its nature and its meaning.

You put the sense of sight and sense of morality on the same pedestal with a broad brush without differetiating between their vastly different nature and assume that just because the feed us some sort of information, that information is to be trusted equally.
This is not a parallel that is substatiated in any way.
It would be like me trying to prove the existence of a realm beyond us that contains scary monsters and in defense of that I would bring in the sense of flight and fight. For problems I have already shown, this is wrong on different levels.

That's simply false, for the reasons I've given. We have experiences, but we can by no means say that we've better reason to think the "physical" senses we experience are any more trustworthy than our moral senses.

Yes, we have experiences. Based on those experiences we create mental maps to help us navigate the world we find ourselves in. But the concepts of "real" and "false" are also creations we invented to help us compare our maps to the world.
You cannot even talk about brains in a vat without invoking the world we observe. This is putting the cart before the horse. It just does not work

Again. You first have to link this moral sense to the concept you call objective morality. I cannot link my flight and fight sense to the "dark dimension of crackers" so how and why are you able to complete such a feat ?
Furthermore, we can equally trust our "physical senses" and our moral sense. But that does not mean we should treat the information they feed us equally. Not only because they are different in nature and that makes it impossible to create a parallel. But because, even in the event we are brains in a vat, our moral sense would still be different in nature than the sense of sight. It would still be a mental problem solving mechanism of our own making.

ALSO, and this is very important. This paralel is actually a very skewed one, on purpose I think. It says that since we trust that our physical senses give us a "real" image of the world, we should not doubt that our moral senses give us a "real" moral image.
But we already know our physical sense do not give us a real image of the world from time to time(eg. optical illusions). So why is the paralel not: "We don't doubt that our physical senses give us a real image of the world most of the time, so in the same way why should we doubt that our moral senses give us a real moral image of the world most of the time".
This is a much better and balanced paralel yet it is obvious why it is not used. Cause it deals a fatal blow to the skeptic position. It puts both the physical senses and the moral ones under scrutiny and it actually provides a way for us to know if we should trust both equally and the nature of their information and their inner working.
We already know our sense do not give us the "real" picture of the world. We see a tiny fraction of the light specturm, same goes for the audio spectrum and the other senses.
What this paralel does is attack the reality of the external world, NOT the reality of the picture our senses create. In other words, what it says is "You don't know the external world is real, therefore don't doubt what your gut says is right". So why are we led to believe the paralel says "You don't know if your 5 senses give you a real picture of the world, therefore why doubt the 6th or 7th sense are the same ?"

Admitting that our 5 sense do not give us the real picture of the world stops this argument in its tracks. Cause it puts two flawed type of senses under scrutiny. No longer can you say "Why doubt your moral sense ?" when you already doubt your sense of sight. It actually forces you to get to the business of doing science and not merely babble about vodoo mojo shtiks.

"How do you differentiate between the metaphysical and the non-existent ?"

I would simply go by the dictionary definitions? One means "in addition to the physical world" and the other means "it doesn't exist in any way".

That's kind of the point of the question. How do you differentiate between an metaphysical apple and an non-existence apple. I am not asking how the concepts differ. I am asking why you treat them differently.

P.S. Do not interpret my vodoo mojo babble as hostile. They are meant to be light hearted. It's a phrase I like to use. I got it from George Carlin.

 

[Laurens]

Laurens says,
"The person who says its okay to eat babies has to explain why they are justified in violating all of our collective ethical reasoning. If they can't then they cannot say that they have a good reason to do it."

Or, they could turn it right back around on YOU, and ask why you're justified in violating THEIR ethical reasoning. Then if you can't do it, you cannot say you have a good reason either.

Not at all. My ethical reasoning that eating babies is wrong is backed up by decent arguments and reasoning. If they say "well I like the taste" or "I don't think its wrong" they haven't destroyed my argument. Not all ethical reasoning is on equal footing. For instance if a suicide bomber reasons that killing civilians is in fact an act of goodness, I can say that they are entirely wrong. Because their argument for why it is good is based on faulty premises.

This brings up an interesting point. Suicide bombers feel that what they do is good. They believe they will be rewarded. When someone else does it they might celebrate. These are people who get a strong feeling that what they are doing is right. Given that this is the case how can you trust feelings when it comes to morality?

ME: "And so "reasoning" will get you "what is most conducive to the well-being of humans". But it won't do anything to tell you what is right and what is wrong (unless you completely redefine these concepts)."
YOU: "Right = decreases pointless human harm and suffering, or actively increases well being. Wrong = increases pointless harm and suffering."

See, that would be a redefinition. You are simply defining good AS what contributes to the flourishing of humans, making your argument circular and the question "Why is the flourishing of humans good?" incoherent (now translating "Why is the flourishing of humans the flourishing of humans?")

Not at all. If I said that doing right was to increase pain in the world, you would be right in saying I was messing with the definitions of these words. Really I posited a definition that makes sense and accounts for what people commonly refer to as right and wrong.

"How do you define right and wrong?"

Simply put, right is the way things ought to be, and wrong is the way things ought not to be.

But your definition doesn't run counter to mine. In fact I just defined the way things ought and ought not be in my definition. Do you agree that less pointless suffering is the way things ought to be? Your definition has just left two open ended questions, mine concisely answered both.

"Do you not at least concede that moral reasoning has something to do with suffering and human flourishing?"

Depends on what you mean by "moral reasoning". Again, I SENSE that human beings should not be made to suffer unnecessarily. That's where I get my belief in objective moral values. I don't just invent a moral code and then call that "right".

You have just invented a moral code and called it right. That is precisely what you have done. You've said that right is the way things ought to be, and the way things ought to be is reflected in how you sense they ought to be. You really think this is a foundation for morality? You've even admitted that people can't always sense what is right and wrong. So what do we do when we don't know? Are we paralysed because our shoddy moral radar doesn't work? Or do we just do what we have always done and use logic and reasoning to arrive at conclusions? What do you say to someone who does something wrong that they feel is right? "Sorry your feeling is trumped by my feeling"?

YOU: "What evidence do you have that a platonic set of moral ideals exist independent of minds?"
ME: "The same exact amount of evidence I have that this keyboard my mind's telling me is real exists. Remember, I am not here to support the claim that objective moral values exist; I'm saying that the arguments to be SKEPTICAL of it do not work, because of this relentless and ever-appearing parallel."
YOU: "I can't make sense of that argument. At all. You are saying your evidence is that you know it and that is that?"

No, what I meant by "the same exact amount of evidence I have that this keyboard's my mind's telling me is real exists", I meant NO evidence. Absolutely none. But the way I "know" it is by my senses, which I trust in the same way that I trust my physical senses.

So someone who says they know that God wants them to kill children in Palestine and that they know this is a good thing has exactly as good a moral reasoning as you do.

"If I said I know that they don't in the same way that I know my keyboard exists then I have just as much of an argument against it as you have for it."

What would that even mean? If you don't sense moral values, but do sense that your keyboard exists, these are certainly not the same!

I'm saying that equating your knowledge of one thing with your knowledge of another and insisting that because they are felt in a similar way they must therefore both be as true as each other is nonsense.

If I said I know that God doesn't exist in the same way I know my keyboard exists. All I am doing is giving you a measure of my wrongness.

YOU: "New moral quandaries occur all the time. One recent example is whether or not it is okay to use an actor's likeness after they have died. Do you get a gut response to that?"
ME: "Well here again the parallel can be used, because there are INARGUABLY "physical" stimuli of which we can have varying degrees of and even a total ABSENCE of detection. Think of a dog whistle, which we cannot hear at all! And so being able to pick up certain things with a sense but not ALL things hardly proves that sense to be veridical."
YOU: "Again your whole argument is that you know objective morals exist."

This is not a fair response to my answer. And while you're not being uncivil, I think this drying up of the topic is confirmatory that I should go ahead and leave this thread to the rest of you.

I don't see how I'm not being fair. Here's what I have got from you so far:

Right is the way things ought to be

Morality is defined by a sense of right and wrong which is in line with an objective set of morals

I feel this sense strongly therefore objective morals exist

Can you tell me the way things ought to be in your definition of right and wrong? You've not established that your sense of morality is anything more than cultural and biological programming along with your own reasoning, so we haven't got to an objective set of morals yet. All you have said so fair is that you sense they exist. I'm saying that is not good enough.

ME: "And the point is precisely that there IS no "moral framework" in terms of sitting down and making the decision. You can certainly sit down and try to figure it out, but my belief is that you're either going to get it right or get it wrong. But ultimately, I think most people would appeal to their moral senses on that question, and reject the idea of governments taking children away from their families in that way."
YOU: "Why do people reject the idea of governments taking children away from their families?"

Because first and foremost, they sense that it is wrong.

I think we could do better than that, but okay.

 

[Prolescum]

Off-topic: Does this forum have a moderator? You know, to kind of deal with people who are just plain being hostile?

We have moderators and rules, which are, by necessity and design, limited in scope. The site's purpose is to foment discussion (not control it), therefore it behooves us to maintain the lightest of touches wherever possible. You can report individual posts if you believe they break the rules, but having your ideas attacked with unflattering verbiage is something you should be able to deal with (or ignore) on your own.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

"Just because we're not aware of the thought process underlying our sensing of something doesn't mean that that process doesn't/hasn't occurred."

He said that REASON was how he determined something was wrong, not merely cognition (which you're right, could be an instant of thought process we're not even aware of). Clearly, that sort of process is not the same as reasoning. And again, our brains interpret physical senses as well, so the parallel continues to shut down skepticism of objective morality.

How do you know that reasoning is not cognition?

And by "know" I don't mean "sense" as you use the term because this is just another feeling - which the research shows is cognitive.

In other words, emotions are unconscious cognition - which is why CBT is so useful in making us aware of the cognitive basis for our emotions, and how to change them - reasoning is conscious cognition.

Thus there's no difference - they're the same process.

You said, "We have evidence of a physical reality, as we do of our physical senses"
I asked, "Where is the evidence then, Dragan? You can't appeal to the very physical senses you're trying to prove true; that would be a circular argument."

And now you say,
"As Feynman put it, those philosophers who believed that the plate of food in front of them didn't exist, died of starvation."

This of course ALSO presupposes the accuracy of the senses on trial. But you're actually highlighting the main point, which is to say we should trust our senses despite not being able to prove the truth of what they're telling us.

Agreed - which touches on Hume's point about inductive reasoning.

"And I thought that I'd already answered this: *something* has to exist - to be the "source", to use your term - and it is that *something* that is physically real."

And my response was to clarify that we're not asking if there is a sort of physical reality of some kind; we're asking should we trust our SENSES to give us the accurate picture of said reality.

You miss the significance of this point.

If *something* doesn't actually (physically) exist, then we can have no trust in our physical senses.

The fact that *something* must actually exist means that our physical senses can be trusted to give us a generally accurate "map" of the "territory" - at least at the level that allows life-forms to survive through avoiding threats to their survival: the edges of cliffs, predators, etc, whilst detecting food, and avoiding poisons. We don't need to detect quantum-level events, which would mean we'd know that our "map" is actually wrong.

"How does evolution indicate - "tie in with belief in" - a objective morality?"

I never said it indicated it, but I said that these things are compatible. It's just that, rather than saying "We evolved these senses, therefore they don't reflect an objective morality" (which sounds like a bit of a non sequitur to me anyway), we say "We evolved these senses, so that we could better DETECT objective rights and wrongs". And again, this is not unlike our physical senses, unless you think there was no such thing as light until we evolved eyes.

At last, I think, I see from where you're coming - you're a pre-suppositionalist, in that you believe that there is (and/or you have) a "absolute standard" of morality.

You're non sequitur comment, and your statement that we evolved these "senses" to "better detect objective rights and wrongs" show where the issue lies.

Firstly, the statement implies teleology in evolution - there's no evidence for such, it's telonomic.

Secondly, how would physical evolution be affected by a metaphysical "moral sense", as you think of the term?

I think Laurens, MarsCydonia, and momo888 have all pointed out the flaws in your position - you have yet to prove that a objective moral sense exists.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[MarsCydonia]

If "You don't doubt question the reality of your physical senses so why doubt the metaphysical sense I assert you have. If you doubt it, you're a liar. I don't have to provide evidence it exists" is not representative of your argument, I wonder why you agreed to every point when I broke it down.

Well, every point except this one:

Did you affirm that we should sense these objective moral duties and obligations (in other words: you assert we have some form of metaphysical sense)

Utterly false. I never insisted that you do in fact have these senses.

Which you don't see as contradicting this:

Did you affirm that people that do not believe they possess this sense are either flawed or lying to themselves/are disingenuous?

Oh absolutely.

So it utterly false that people should sense these objective moral duties and obligations but if they do not they are either flawed or lying to themselves/are disingenuous... No contradictions there...

Should I agree with this contradiction? Or should I have never pointed it out? Or never mentionned the representation (which you agreed with except for your contradiction)? Which part of my comment did you find hostile?

And I explained exactly where the misunderstanding (on your part) lies... twice!

Would it be hostile to point out that your "explanation" of my "misunderstanding" failed, twice?

While you have not adressed at how your misrepresentation of my position. I suppose I should understand that ignoring misrepresentations you commit is "non-hostile"?

The problem being: they are better established that this yet undemonstrated metaphysical sense of morality. Just because your skeptical of that, doesn't change that fact, does it?

But let's say you are right... (an hypothetical):
You say people should both trust their physical senses and their metaphysical senses because? (Wait, didn't I ask a form of this question half a dozen times already?)

Because are you not arguing that we should not trust our physical senses as all this could be a detailed dream, therefore we should trust a metaphysical sense is real? How does that follow?

"The problem being: they are better established that this yet undemonstrated metaphysical sense of morality."

Again, you guys keep claiming this but only have the "physical" senses which are on trial to use in support of the claim! Why can't you see that this is circular logic, presupposing the veridicality of the senses you're trying to prove are veridical?

You left a lot unanswered there. So I'll ask again (in a modified form):
If we presuppose the existence of our physical sense, why does that mean we should presuppose a "metaphysical" sense equally?

Because even if we presuppose both the physical senses and a "metaphysical" sense, it doesn't change the fact that the experiences which follow are wholly different. In that sense (not a sense that detect, you mixed the two earlier), the physical senses have been established:
That does not mean that our experience of them are always accurate (they're not) but that we have established how they work, how we test for their accuracy, etc. even if this world could be an illusion/a dream/the matrix/etc.

Your "metaphysical sense" however? You still have provided nothing of the sort for it.

This "defense against skepticism of the moral realm" would be equally valid of skepticisim of god, the great old ones, ghosts, etc. wouldn't it?

Except for...? Especially since the objective morality WLC claims to sense is god himself. Therefore, why should you be skeptical of WLC and doubt that his metaphysical sense is accurate or trustworthy?

Well the simple (and I'm sure that, here, it's an unwelcome) truth is that belief in a god on the basis of experience WOULD be a properly basic belief in much the same way. This doesn't bother me one bit; I've no ax to grind on that topic. And even if I did, it's no REFUTATION of my argument, to point to the potential consequences of its acceptance and say "You wouldn't want that to happen, would you Vic?"

You misunderstood which part shows the problem with your "argument". "The simple truth" is that your "argument" can be used as a "defense against skepticism" of any and all beliefs as long as they are "sensed", even competing and contradictory beliefs".

"To point to the potential consequences of its acceptance", of accepting contradictory beliefs, which would mean to throw out the laws of logic.

Since I am unwilling to part with them simply because "someone senses something", it seems to me to be quite enough to warrant skepticism of which person, if any, actually senses something they cannot or refuse to demonstrate, even in this potentially illusory world accepted by the presupposed existence of my physical senses.

This "reality" is the only reality I have to deal with and in it I can be skeptical of contradictory beliefs.

I'll be leaving now, and you guys can discuss whether or not you think I made any good points at all amongst yourselves. I think Craig's defense of that premise remains intact, particularly in light of the many WAYS in which the parallel works (which even shocked ME by the end of this discussion). I think it's far more obvious that right and wrong exist and we've simply evolved to sense it/sense it more accurately

Did you make any good points at all? I don't believe I've seen any.
Perhaps I did since I can't trust that you're not a figment of my imagination so therefore, any good points you would have made, I would in fact have made (that is, the illusion of Vic 2.0 that I made in my mind).
Unless I presuppose I can trust my senses actually exist in which case your argument is that I'm supposed to grant you that your "metaphysical sense" also exists and works while the actual case is that by this standard I would have to grant any and all beliefs as long as they are "sensed", even competing and contradictory beliefs".

And I think you are confused about the meaning of "obvious". If objective morality's existence was obvious, why then would your "argument against skepticism" of it be needed at all? Couldn't you just demonstrate its existence?

 

[Deleted member 619]

I'll do this once, and once only. The quote function isn't difficult to master, takes no more effort than typing 'x says', and makes formatting responses much more straightforward. It works like this:

[quote]insert interlocutor's text here[/quote]

and displays like this:

insert interlocutor's text here

If you like, you can insert the interlocutor's name in the tags thus:

[quote="hackentwatface"]insert interlocutor's text here[/quote]

which displays thus:

insert interlocutor's text here

This makes the post easier to read, and considerably easier to respond to.

Immediately I'm sensing a bias against Dr. Craig here!

Damned right I have a bias. He's a liar and an genocide apologist.

Here's hoping that does not hinder their ability to reason!

It doesn't. I have some expertise in this area.

When it is said that morality requires thought, however, I feel this is trying to blur lines. As I said to Laurens, we can sense things WITHOUT much actual thought, and this too applies in the physical senses parallel.

This has overlooked most of the content that explains why it requires thought and leaps straight to disagreement. Show your working out, as I have done.

The simple fact is that we face never-before-encountered situations every day that require us to make moral judgements and, as you've already accepted, having absolutes is anathema to making any progress with these, because absolutes simply can't address them.

Moreover, I'd argue that what you're doing in those situations has absolutely nothing to do with senses, and has more to do with sensibilities, which are arrived at via thought and experience. That they can be ingrained to the point that we can have autonomic responses to them doesn't remotely demonstrate that we're sensing anything out there in the world constituting 'right' or 'wrong'. These terms do more to muddy the waters than anything I've said, not least because they're dichotomous, and the world doesn't fit in neat little boxes, much as we like to classify.

There's a reason that the philosophical literature on ethics is voluminous. It would all be redundant if your view were even remotely tenable.

I would cut out "must remain so", because that sounds like we're DECIDING whether or not right and wrong works this way, which actually undermines the larger point I think both the author and myself are agreeing on. Better to say, "This is how morality works, and we should always RECOGNIZE that".

Not hugely interested in your literary critique, not least because I choose my words with care, and I said there exactly what I wanted to say.

That's good, they acknowledge Craig's point about the reality given to us by our observations not being a matter of fact.

That's not Craig's point, and I couldn't give a flying fuck whether he said it. Craig is irrelevant here, and to be clear, continuing to attribute my thinking as acknowledging anything that oxygen-thief has to say will garner more hostility. That cunt is a big problem that the world would be better off without. I hope I'm clear on that.

That's interesting, because to hear a couple people HERE tell it, they DON'T have these moral senses. I'm glad to see SOMEBODY'S being honest

Got to love the veiled insult here, suggesting that anybody here has been anything other than honest. Stop this fucking shit now, and deal with the content. Your commentary in this regard is uninteresting, and constitutes a fallacious poisoning of the well, no matter how well you think you've disguised it.

If morality is a framework, then it's SUBJECTIVE because it cannot exist without a mind.

Nonsense. You seem to think that subjective means 'independent of all minds', which is complete bollocks. It means that it isn't dependent on a single mind in isolation, hence the distinction I made to begin with. Intersubjectivity is the third way, being neither entirely objective nor entirely subjective. The world simply isn't as binary as you think it is. This is the entire core of your failure to grasp what morality really is.

Depending on minds for its existence, it is purely subjective and it being inter-subjective doesn't keep it from being subjective at all.

Yes it does, because we aren't each entitled to determine on our own what is moral. It requires thought and the meeting of minds. It resides on a stratum that is neither completely dependent on the mind nor completely independent of it. This is the point that keeps failing to penetrate the miasma you laughably call thought.

And while I agree that the moral argument fails, the author's objection to premise 1 fails also. It seems to be assuming that no ARGUMENTS are given to defend premise 1, which isn't the case. And so the first premise they provide in their analogy is simply a false premise, incomparable to Craig's first premise in the moral argument. And they don't seem to be aware of Craig's answer to the Euthyphro dilemma, making them quite far BEHIND when it comes to Craig's arguments!

You really think Matt isn't aware of the pure sophistry Kraig engages in regarding Euthypro? All Kraig is doing there is pushing the problem back a step, in much the same way that panspermia pushes abiogenesis off the planet.

Kraig's solution to the dilemma actually contradicts the idea of god being omnipotent. By saying that god's will is a result of him being good by his very nature, what he's actually saying is that this will is not his own, that he had no choice in the matter, and that it's imposed on him from outside.

This is the result of thinking that knowing ISBN numbers constitutes doing philosophy, and it's pure wank.

About the alleged oxymoron, I think at best this makes a good suggestion that maybe the statement should be reworded. But we all understand the meaning of the statement, which is why no one who's actually debated Craig in academia has wasted their time with this criticism.

Nice that you can speak for everyone in academia concerning their motives for not addressing this guff. It's more likely, given that Kraig Fucktrumpet's favourite tactic is the Gish Gallop, that they had their hands full getting through the litany of bad arguments he presents, and in fact continues to present long after they've been comprehensively eviscerated by people who understand the subject matter far better than he does.

You might ask yourself why he's ducked me for some years after a challenge was issued to him almost a decade ago by the members of the Richard Dawkins forum to debate by text. I, of course, know the answer, namely that Gish Gallop doesn't work in such a setting, which is why he avoids text debates. I'd fuck him back to the bronze age from which his credulous drivel comes.

Dillahunty's allegation also fails, because the argument DOESN'T say "God is morality, therefore god". It says "Morality exists. Morality probably WOULDN'T exist if there WASN'T a god. And therefore a god probably exists."

This is nonsense. Sometimes, you have to be a bit more proficient with logic to spot when a conclusion is smuggled into a premise, but I exposed this in my post dealing with logic and fallacies on my blog:

[quot]Petitio principii (begging the question). This is one of the most common fallacies you're likely to come across. It's committed when the conclusion of an argument is contained within the premises. It's generally easy to spot but, occasionally, the conclusion is 'smuggled' into the premises in a form not easy to spot. It will usually be in the form of a premise whose truth relies on the truth of the conclusion (hence begging the question) or vice versa. Note that a question-begging argument is always valid and, if the premises are true, then it's also sound (it couldn't really be other in cases where the conclusion is contained in the premises because, if the premise is true, and contains the conclusion, the conclusion must be true). Gary Curtis gives the following example:

P1. Murder is morally wrong.
P2. All abortions are murders.
C. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

This is clearly a valid argument, and it doesn't appear that the conclusion is in the premises, so what's the problem?

It becomes clearer when you strip away the loaded term 'murder'. The first step is simply to remove the first premise, which lends nothing significant to the argument, and then to replace the word 'murders' with something more neutral. Then we're left with:

P. All abortions are wrongful killing.
C. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

In content, this argument is identical to the original, yet now the circularity is crystal clear.[/quote]

I should also point out that your formulation doesn't reflect Kraig's, not least because yours is presented as an inductive argument, while Kraig's is deductive, so probability appears nowhere in it. If you think that's a trivial distinction, then you aren't equipped for this discussion, because this is a fundamental distinction in logic.

I also note that you had nothing remotely to say on the abuse of the material conditional or the blind assertion.

And let me just say in closing that, I WAS RIGHT!

No, you weren't, and you've left much of the content unaddressed, some of which I've highlighted above.

This long spiel was mostly irrelevant to my point, and I shouldn't have had to sift through it all looking for the alleged refutation of the existence of objective moral values. I was not here to argue for Craig's moral argument. Next time, just give the damn point that's relevant, please?

Tell you what, next time, I'll post as I see fit and, if you don't like it, feel free to tell the next person who happens along for whom your opinion is worth two shits. I don't give a fart in a basket about your opinion.

I look forward to your next bout of hand-waving.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Logic is merely the attempt by humans to make sense of the world. I view it and think it is descriptive, not prescriptive. I hope hackenslash can give us his take on this, given his grasp on the subject.

I don't think either version is entirely correct, but neither is that wide of the mark, either.

What you're describing is properly termed reasoning rather than logic. Logic is essentially the systematic study of argument form, inference and paradox. As such, it's really an attempt to make sense of the inferences we draw about the world, rather than making sense of the world itself. That would be reasoning, the application of the results of logic to make sense of the world. It's a hierarchy of epistemology.

That said, I would agree with Vic that logical absolutes are true even in a universe where nobody is doing any reasoning. Even in an empty universe, a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time (law of non-contradiction), a stone cannot be not-a-stone (law of identity), and a statement is either true or its negation is true (law of excluded middle). This last is a source of some confusion, because this short form is often taken as the full story, but the full form tells us that it only applies to binary statements. Here's Aristotle:

there cannot be an intermediate between contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one predicate.

Here we can see that this law applies only to properly dichotomous statements, and we know there are statements that aren't as binary as that. I like to use Pythagoras' Theorem to demonstrate, because most people grok it reasonably well. It states that 'the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides'.

This might seem like a properly dichotomous statement, but it isn't. When we look at a triangle in, for example, hyperbolic or spherical geometry, we can see that this relationship simply doesn't hold. In spherical geometry, it's particularly problematic, because we can have an instance in which all three angles are right-angles, and all three sides are thus the same length, which means that every side is the hypotenuse and none of them is the sum of the squares on the other two sides, because the square on the hypotenuse is exactly the same size as the other two.

I covered this in more detail in my post on fuzzy logic.

There's a little misuse of terms in what you've responded to, probably unintentional, such as 'sound' and 'valid', although these are pedantic points rooted in those terms having very specific technical definitions in logic. 'Valid', for example, means that a conclusion follows proper rules of inference between premises and conclusion, while 'sound' means that an argument is both valid and starts from true premises. A sound deductive argument is one in which the conclusion cannot fail to obtain; the conclusion is 'necessary' (this is what 'necessary' means in the technical jargon).

 

[Visaki]

Nonsense. You seem to think that subjective means 'independent of all minds', which is complete bollocks. It means that it isn't dependent on a single mind in isolation, hence the distinction I made to begin with. Intersubjectivity is the third way, being neither entirely objective nor entirely subjective. The world simply isn't as binary as you think it is. This is the entire core of your failure to grasp what morality really is.

I hope you mean "objective", because if you don't I've been very ignorant for a long time.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Nonsense. You seem to think that subjective means 'independent of all minds', which is complete bollocks. It means that it isn't dependent on a single mind in isolation, hence the distinction I made to begin with. Intersubjectivity is the third way, being neither entirely objective nor entirely subjective. The world simply isn't as binary as you think it is. This is the entire core of your failure to grasp what morality really is.

I hope you mean "objective", because if you don't I've been very ignorant for a long time.

Oops. Well spotted. You are correct, of course. Speed typing in such volume is always prone to such errors. Apologies.

 

[momo666]

Logic is merely the attempt by humans to make sense of the world. I view it and think it is descriptive, not prescriptive. I hope hackenslash can give us his take on this, given his grasp on the subject.

I don't think either version is entirely correct, but neither is that wide of the mark, either.

What you're describing is properly termed reasoning rather than logic. Logic is essentially the systematic study of argument form, inference and paradox. As such, it's really an attempt to make sense of the inferences we draw about the world, rather than making sense of the world itself. That would be reasoning, the application of the results of logic to make sense of the world. It's a hierarchy of epistemology.

That said, I would agree with Vic that logical absolutes are true even in a universe where nobody is doing any reasoning. Even in an empty universe, a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time (law of non-contradiction), a stone cannot be not-a-stone (law of identity), and a statement is either true or its negation is true (law of excluded middle). This last is a source of some confusion, because this short form is often taken as the full story, but the full form tells us that it only applies to binary statements. Here's Aristotle:

Would I be wrong in saying that logic is merely the method we use to make sure our reasoning does not crash ? Much like the "blue screen" Windows gets when it encounters an error.
It might not be correct in saying that logic is descriptive but it certainly is not prescriptive. If what I am saying is correct, then it does seem like the logic should be sound when discussing the brain in a vat problem.
Although, why can't it be said that, just like our sense of vision is being feed to us; some kind of information is also being fed to us in our cerebrum making us create false methods of analysis.

There's a little misuse of terms in what you've responded to, probably unintentional, such as 'sound' and 'valid', although these are pedantic points rooted in those terms having very specific technical definitions in logic. 'Valid', for example, means that a conclusion follows proper rules of inference between premises and conclusion, while 'sound' means that an argument is both valid and starts from true premises. A sound deductive argument is one in which the conclusion cannot fail to obtain; the conclusion is 'necessary' (this is what 'necessary' means in the technical jargon).

Yes, unfortunately I am not that good at technicalities. In fact, I am pretty bad when it comes to the subject.


By the way, what do you think of this following attempt to answer the parallel:

1. You don't doubt that the photon hitting your retina is real and not digital, why doubt that what your moral sense tells you is real.
2. I don't. I accept that what my "moral sense" is being triggered by (eg. a man beating a child) is real and not digital.

In both cases, even if the assumption is made that this moral sense is indeed a sense like the sense of vision, I accept that their triggers are real in nature and not illusions.

 

[thenexttodie]

Yes moral values are objectively real and there is such a thing as right and wrong.

Atheists pretend they don't believe in absolute right or wrong. But they do. All Atheists on this form believe its absolutely right to dress little boys up as girls and to pretend men are women. All of them believe this. And they all believe they are absolutely right in doing so.

 

[Akamia]

Yes moral values are objectively real and there is such a thing as right and wrong.

Atheists pretend they don't believe in absolute right or wrong. But they do. All Atheists on this form believe its absolutely right to dress little boys up as girls and to pretend men are women. All of them believe this. And they all believe they are absolutely right in doing so.

Would you please stop pretending to know what everyone's positions are when you clearly do not?

I don't even know where you're getting that bit about pretending men are women.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[thenexttodie]

Yes moral values are objectively real and there is such a thing as right and wrong.

Atheists pretend they don't believe in absolute right or wrong. But they do. All Atheists on this form believe its absolutely right to dress little boys up as girls and to pretend men are women. All of them believe this. And they all believe they are absolutely right in doing so.

Would you please stop pretending to know what everyone's positions are when you clearly do not?

I don't even know where you're getting that bit about pretending men are women.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Typical response from an Atheist. Happens every time. The Atheist will pretend to be mysterious and the idea of pretending a man is a women is something unheard of..or that a little boy should be dressed like a girl.

Then for some reason when I ask a second time for them to admit to their screwed sexual beliefs, they do.."Yeah I believe the fucked up shit! But your a trooollllll!!!"

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?

 

[Akamia]

Yes moral values are objectively real and there is such a thing as right and wrong.

Atheists pretend they don't believe in absolute right or wrong. But they do. All Atheists on this form believe its absolutely right to dress little boys up as girls and to pretend men are women. All of them believe this. And they all believe they are absolutely right in doing so.

Would you please stop pretending to know what everyone's positions are when you clearly do not?

I don't even know where you're getting that bit about pretending men are women.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Typical response from an Atheist. Happens every time. The Atheist will pretend to be mysterious and the idea of pretending a man is a women is something unheard of..or that a little boy should be dressed like a girl.

Then for some reason when I ask a second time for them to admit to their screwed sexual beliefs, they do.."Yeah I believe the fucked up shit! But your a trooollllll!!!"

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?

I literally don't know what the hell you're talking about.

However, your response is pretty typical of dishonest Christians, so I didn't know what I was expecting...

How about we drop the grandstanding and strawmen and actually address points, hmmm...?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[thenexttodie]

Typical response from an Atheist. Happens every time. The Atheist will pretend to be mysterious and the idea of pretending a man is a women is something unheard of..or that a little boy should be dressed like a girl.

Then for some reason when I ask a second time for them to admit to their screwed sexual beliefs, they do.."Yeah I believe the fucked up shit! But your a trooollllll!!!"

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?

I literally don't know what the hell you're talking about.

I'm talking about when parents dress up their little boys as girls and pretend he's a girl or when an older man starts dressing up as a girl and he wants everyone to pretend he's a woman. You honestly want me to believe you are oblivious to this reality? Stop lying and admit you this is what you support.

 

[Akamia]

Typical response from an Atheist. Happens every time. The Atheist will pretend to be mysterious and the idea of pretending a man is a women is something unheard of..or that a little boy should be dressed like a girl.

Then for some reason when I ask a second time for them to admit to their screwed sexual beliefs, they do.."Yeah I believe the fucked up shit! But your a trooollllll!!!"

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?

I literally don't know what the hell you're talking about.

I'm talking about when parents dress up their little boys as girls and pretend he's a girl or when an older man starts dressing up as a girl and he wants everyone to pretend he's a woman. You honestly want me to believe you are oblivious to this reality? Stop lying and admit you this is what you support.

First of all, don't tell me what to do, or not do. I do not recognize your authority over me.

Second, if someone wishes to be considered a man or woman when their biological sex does not match (and indeed they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria) I see no good reason to tell them otherwise. I think this is what you are talking about...? I was not lying to you, I actually don't know if this is what you mean.

This parents cross-dressing their children stuff, though? I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it happens. I don't really know anything about it, I cannot comment one way or another.


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[Grumpy Santa]

Typical response from an Atheist. Happens every time. The Atheist will pretend to be mysterious and the idea of pretending a man is a women is something unheard of..or that a little boy should be dressed like a girl.

Then for some reason when I ask a second time for them to admit to their screwed sexual beliefs, they do.."Yeah I believe the fucked up shit! But your a trooollllll!!!"

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?

I literally don't know what the hell you're talking about.

I'm talking about when parents dress up their little boys as girls and pretend he's a girl or when an older man starts dressing up as a girl and he wants everyone to pretend he's a woman. You honestly want me to believe you are oblivious to this reality? Stop lying and admit you this is what you support.

I'm not familiar with this personally, but terribly sorry you had to go through this.

 

[Visaki]

Yes moral values are objectively real and there is such a thing as right and wrong.

Please define what you mean By "right" and "wrong" in this moral context. This is actually pretty important.

Atheists pretend they don't believe in absolute right or wrong. But they do. All Atheists on this form believe its absolutely right to dress little boys up as girls and to pretend men are women. All of them believe this. And they all believe they are absolutely right in doing so.

I have no idea why you are trying to tell other people what they believe. Nor why you feel the need to use the word "absolutely". Are you using it as a synonym for "objective" because that's what it feels like?

 

[thenexttodie]

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?
[/quote]

Second, if someone wishes to be considered a man or woman when their biological sex does not match (and indeed they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria) I see no good reason to tell them otherwise.

I guess that's a yes

 

[Akamia]

So, Akamia you do believe we should pretend like men are women. Right?

Second, if someone wishes to be considered a man or woman when their biological sex does not match (and indeed they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria) I see no good reason to tell them otherwise.

I guess that's a yes

And your point about this is...?