Where does morality come from?

[Kylie]

I get that we agree, but you called it a hangup of mine on wordplay, so it seems like you think it's no big deal.

No, I just think you aren't dealing with the intent of what I am saying.

 

[Moral Orel]

No, I just think you aren't dealing with the intent of what I am saying.

Sorry, weren't you talking about how you determine what you "should" do?

 

[Kylie]

Sorry, weren't you talking about how you determine what you "should" do?

And I think that you know perfectly well I am talking in a subjective sense.

I am talking about how I determine what I should do.

 

[Ken-1122]

When did I ever say anything about "emotions coming from the physical"? I said they are physical sensations.

When I said “Your emotional feelings don’t come from your 5 senses, (physical) they come from your thoughts/mind.
You objected to that. Are you changing your views now?

, I'll let you walk back your claim if you explain this to me. You say right/wrong is okay when we're talking about morals. So saying murder is wrong is okay. When you say "We both believe we are right" about what we think about morals, now you don't mean correct, so what do you mean?

Definition of right | Dictionary.com
Right is defined as “in accordance with what is good, proper, or just. Going by that definition, we both believe our views are in accordance with what is good, proper, or just.

That's what I said. How does the fact that you don't feel negative emotions every time something is unfair but you do feel negative emotions sometimes when something is unfair discount my estimation of your moral decision making.

You said:

When things are fair, you feel good, when things are unfair you feel bad. So you believe "murder is wrong" because you feel bad when people do it. Since you aren't making any real statements about something that is objectively true, all you're really saying is "I don't like murder because it makes me feel bad”.

That is absurd. I read about someone being killed in the news the other day; did I feel bad? No I felt indifferent; people are killed everyday. I recognize the killing as wrong, but not because of how I felt but because how I judged the incident.

What reasons do you have to declare "unfairness is wrong" other than "unfairness makes me feel bad sometimes"?

This might come as a surprise to you, but I have this unique ability to understand the difference between right/wrong, good/bad. This is what I call judging; it's not about how I feel at the moment.

 

[Moral Orel]

And I think that you know perfectly well I am talking in a subjective sense.

I am talking about how I determine what I should do.

I know. What I was getting at was the cynic in me saying that all of your motivations boil down to doing what feels good to you, and it's only because empathy causes you to feel other folks' feelings that you act in accordance with how others feel.

 

[Moral Orel]

When I said “Your emotional feelings don’t come from your 5 senses, (physical) they come from your thoughts/mind.
You objected to that. Are you changing your views now?

No. I didn't contradict myself. Your feelings are part of your five senses as I've been saying all along and I demonstrated as such. They don't "come from", they aren't caused by, they are one and the same.

Definition of right | Dictionary.com
Right is defined as “in accordance with what is good, proper, or just. Going by that definition, we both believe our views are in accordance with what is good, proper, or just.

No. You said that you believe you are right that murder is wrong. "Right" didn't refer to your views, they referred to you. Are you saying that merely believing that murder is wrong causes you to be in accordance with what is good, proper, or just?

You said:

When things are fair, you feel good, when things are unfair you feel bad. So you believe "murder is wrong" because you feel bad when people do it. Since you aren't making any real statements about something that is objectively true, all you're really saying is "I don't like murder because it makes me feel bad”.

That is absurd. I read about someone being killed in the news the other day; did I feel bad? No I felt indifferent; people are killed everyday. I recognize the killing as wrong, but not because of how I felt but because how I judged the incident.

So sometimes a person far removed from you is murdered and you don't feel bad. How does that negate what I've said that the only reason you have to deem murder wrong is that sometimes it makes you feel bad?

This might come as a surprise to you, but I have this unique ability to understand the difference between right/wrong, good/bad. This is what I call judging; it's not about how I feel at the moment.

Way to dodge the question. You're saying I'm wrong with my guess, but you're curiously avoiding telling me why you judge these things as wrong. Is it random? Is it arbitrary? What is wrong with murder that you judge it to be wrong? Because it is unfair? Well why do you judge treating people unfairly to be wrong? What's wrong with treating people unfairly?

 

[Ken-1122]

No. I didn't contradict myself. Your feelings are part of your five senses as I've been saying all along and I demonstrated as such. They don't "come from", they aren't caused by, they are one and the same.

I said EMOTIONAL feelings. So which of my 5 senses are the same as my emotions? Taste, touch, hearing, smell, or sight? Which of those 5 are one and the same as my emotions?

No. You said that you believe you are right that murder is wrong. "Right" didn't refer to your views, they referred to you.

No it refers to my subjective views

Are you saying that merely believing that murder is wrong causes you to be in accordance with what is good, proper, or just?

No, I’m saying that particular view of mine is in accordance with what is good, proper, and just

So sometimes a person far removed from you is murdered and you don't feel bad. How does that negate what I've said that the only reason you have to deem murder wrong is that sometimes it makes you feel bad?

Again; it has nothing to do with how I feel at the moment, it has to do with how I subjectively judge the action.

Way to dodge the question. You're saying I'm wrong with my guess, but you're curiously avoiding telling me why you judge these things as wrong. Is it random? Is it arbitrary? What is wrong with murder that you judge it to be wrong? Because it is unfair? Well why do you judge treating people unfairly to be wrong? What's wrong with treating people unfairly?

I didn’t dodge the question. What kind of an answer are you looking for? There are a million reasons I judge murder wrong;

*I deem murder unfair,
*I empathize with the person being murdered,
*It goes against the golden rule
*I feel killing has to be justified before taking human life
*It goes against social order
*Death is bad, life is good
And the list goes on…..

 

[Kylie]

I know. What I was getting at was the cynic in me saying that all of your motivations boil down to doing what feels good to you, and it's only because empathy causes you to feel other folks' feelings that you act in accordance with how others feel.

To be more exact, my empathy causes me to feel what I expect other people are feeling based on both how they react as well as how I anticipate I would react in their situation.

 

[Moral Orel]

I said EMOTIONAL feelings. So which of my 5 senses are the same as my emotions? Taste, touch, hearing, smell, or sight? Which of those 5 are one and the same as my emotions?

Emotions are feelings. Feelings are a physical sensation, a tactile sensation. When you feel butterflies, you feel the emotion of nervousness. Your emotion of nervousness doesn't "come from" your sense of touch. Your sense of touch is how you process the experience; the experience "came from" whatever external stimuli caused you to feel nervous. If you place your hand in a fire, the burning sensation "comes from" the fire, not your sense of touch. If you eat chocolate ice cream, the sweet flavor "comes from" the sugar, not your sense of taste. Why is this bizarre "comes from" phrasing of yours important?

No it refers to my subjective views

Look at this sentence: "I believe I am right". The word "right" refers back to the word "I". I'm talking about how the English language works grammatically. You didn't mention "your views" so the word "right" can't refer back to a word that wasn't there.

If you would like to change it and say, "What I meant to say was..." go ahead, just acknowledge that you don't believe you are right. Your sentence as written doesn't mean what you claim it does.

And thanks for making us waste all of this time because you misspoke.

Again; it has nothing to do with how I feel at the moment, it has to do with how I subjectively judge the action.

I never said anything about "at the moment" so you're just talking to yourself here.

*I deem murder unfair,

You've said that already. What's wrong with being unfair?

*I empathize with the person being murdered,

Okay, so you feel negative emotions because the murdered person feels negative emotions. One point for me and my "feelings make you think things are bad" theory.

*It goes against the golden rule

You already said that by saying it isn't fair. When are you going to tell me what's wrong with being unfair?

*I feel killing has to be justified before taking human life

Yeah, you keep saying that it isn't fair. What's wrong with being unfair?

*It goes against social order

What is wrong with going against social order?

*Death is bad, life is good

Why is death bad? Why is death good?

Save us both some time. Get down to the brute facts so that I have no reason to ask "why?". Do you have any brute facts? If you can't answer "why" to all these questions, then your reasons have no justification. Do you judge things with no justification?

I didn’t dodge the question.

You still haven't answered it, so you've dodged it twice now. Are you going for the threepeat? Why is it wrong to treat people unfairly?

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Actually, I met my spouse...we went out for coffee. I bought her a ring; I actually knew the size of her finger. God is a concept you cannot measure, take out for coffee, or find any compelling evidence of.

Still you didn’t study her liver function before you claimed you knew her and loved her. Why i dust you have to understand trinity before you can know and understand God?

How did you come to know your spouse? You talked to her and she revealed herself to you. If she had told you nothing you still wouldn’t know her even if you did know all about her liver functions.

Now, if you don’t believe He’s there, He won’t reveal much if anything to you for obvious reasons. The Bible is written by men who knew God to varying degrees. We benefit from their knowledge and experience.

But only God can actually reveal Himself to a man. We are not in charge of that relationship or how much he reveals.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

We are not blind, we need compelling evidence to believe impossible claims. The concept of the Trinity, for example is logically impossible. The evidence would need to overcome that problem. Don't call us blind, we see just fine and don't appreciate insults.

Your own words betray the blindness you deny. You choose to describe the claims of Christ as “impossible” showing us that your eyes are already shut tight. Those who have predetermined the claims are impossible without looking at the evidence don’t WANT to see any. That is a kind of blindness.

 

[stevevw]

First of all, you have not explained HOW you determined that it is better to kill one person than five. And your statement would seem to suggest that this is always the case, but would you kill one 12 years old in order to save the lives of five 90-year-olds?

Logically killing more lives is morally worse IE more chance of kids without a parent, parents losing partners, people losing loved ones which can cause more harm and misery. But killing multiple times is always morally worse because it is multiplying that moral wrong.

That's why people naturally are appalled at serial killers or those who do mass killings. If the group of six got together and took precautions in case a trolley situation happened they would come to the same conclusion. No one would say its best if we kill the group rather than the 1.

A question: Are God's moral laws right simply because God says them, or are they right because God is incapable of giving any laws that are wrong?

That's the Euthyphro dilemma. But this is a false dilemma as there is another alternative. God wills something because God's nature is good. He is the essence of good, the logos, or what Plato calls "the Good". By nature, God is just, loving, kind, compassionate, all the moral values. As God is naturally good his commandments (our moral duties) are reflected in God's nature and therefore are not grounded in anything external to God and God is not arbitrarily determining or commanding those morals to us.
Euthyphro dilemma - Wikipedia

Some people would say that it is always wrong to take a deliberate action if you know that action will result in a death.

Yes, that is called absolute morality where the act of killing is always wrong no matter what the situation. Objective morality only means that in every given situation there is an objectively right or wrong thing to do outside of human opinion.

Irrelevant. The situation is what it was. You can't claim it doesn't count because you think it should have been different.

I'm not saying that. I am saying you have to find out the cause that leads to harm or killing as it may not be the driver who is at fault. Say you are driving and someone had cut your brake line and you ran down someone because your brakes didn't work. Is the driver culpable or the person who cut the brakes. In the case of the train incident, the inquiry found that poor work practices in rehooking the carriages were the cause of the incident. That put the controller of the tracks in the trolley situation in the first place where he was forced to make that hard decision.

You have to take that into consideration. It isn't as though someone just decided to send a carriage into a house for the fun of it. That's why they have the inquiry to find out who contributed to the situation and was at fault.

You say it's unconnected, despite the fact that I showed you how it will have to be dealt with in regards to autonomous cars, and despite the fact, I showed you an example of it that happened in real life.

Both the automated cars and the real-life situation are different from the "trolley thought experiment". The real-life situation allows all the attempts to avoid the incident and takes all the circumstances into consideration like poor work standards etc. It was the poor work standards that caused the runaway carriages. It allows human agency, humans to be humans and try everything to change the situation and it is in the trying that lives can be saved and harm avoided and shows that they care.

The same with the automated car in that contributing facts are taken into consideration. Like there are automated brakes that make a difference, the pedestrian contribution in jumping out in front of the car thus reducing culpability of the driver. And if the car is automated then how is the driver responsible for any killing anyway.

But the "trolley thought experiment" doesn't consider any of this. It puts a person in an unreal situation where no real-life contributing factors can be taken into consideration. It says the person has to sit there and drive the trolley into someone like a cardboard cutout. They can't yell to warn people or and mitigating circumstances like using brakes to slow down cannot be used. Anyone would hit the brakes.

But no there are no brakes on this make-believe trolley. If there are no brakes who is responsible for the brakes not working etc. That is why it is criticized as not only an unreal situation but a psychologically damaging situation to put a person into for trying to teach about ethical dilemmas.

And another criticism claims that the person has no meaningful agency at all? In one choice, five die. In the other choice, one dies. The first choice results in four extra lives. Is that not meaningful? You've been saying it is, how can you now embrace a criticism that says it isn't?

The criticism isn't about the end choice. It is about the "thought experiment" itself in putting a person in that unreal situation by taking away human agency for all the other choices and actions any normal human would take before it got to that point.

This doesn't seem to make sense. If there is some objective morality independent of Humans, why doesn't that apply to all morality? Are there two different kinds of morality? If so, can you explain how we can determine which category of morality a particular issue falls into?

Yes there is subjective morality (that's personal opinion) and then there is objective morality (independent of people's views). So in any given moral situation, a person can take a subjective or objective moral position. But they cannot take both at the same time.

If there is objective morality at all, then you should be able to tell me what that objective morality says about a particular moral issue.

Yes but that will be according to God's laws and some situations may take more consideration than others to determine God's laws. But there will always be a determination.

Once again I will break this post up as it is too long.
Regards Steve

 

[stevevw]

WOAH! Hold on there!

You just told me, "I am not claiming that all morality is objective."

I meant from a human perspective that people can still have their subjective morals and not support objective morals.

If you agree that some (but not all) moral issues are subjective, how can those subjective issues still have an objective moral position?

Because subjective morality is not a true indication of what is right or wrong for any situation. So though a person may have a subjective moral position there is also an objective moral to the same situation.

Once again, the fact that lots of people share a moral position does not mean that moral position is objectively true.

Yes I agree and it doesn't disprove it either. That's why showing that even one situation can be morally objective is important in supporting whether there are objective moral values. It is like me saying there is such a thing as anger. I only have to show one person being angry to support that there is anger. The same with objective moral values.

Okay, I'll use your own words.

"All situations should have an objective moral position."

That is impossible if some morality is subjective.

From a human perspective, any given situation can have someone taking a subjective moral position and another taking an objective moral position. It is another story whether both can be true at the same time. I am not rejecting subjective morals positions but only saying objective morals are the true moral value for any given situation.

Morals need a system of morals?
And do the morals in that system of morals need a third level layer of morals as well? That seems infinitely recursive.

I am not sure what you mean.

Why? The presence of one does not mean there MUST be others.

Of course, it does.
Morals need to belong to a system just like laws do. If you prove one law exists then you automatically prove a system of law exists. A law in isolation means nothing just like a moral in isolation means nothing. Say I prove that abusing a child is objectively wrong. What is the moral that applies to this situation, kindness, love, respect, dignity, justice? They all apply.

Not abusing a child is about treating human life as precious which is associated with many morals. That is why Christ said that all the law can be summed up in loving your neighbour as you love yourself. That is why the golden rule is held up as a coverall for many morals. Morals don't operate in isolation they are part of a bigger system. You cannot disconnect a moral with other morals.

You still haven't shown that any of these are objective.

Of course, they are objective. Everyone knows that it is always morally right to tenderly love and hold a child than sexually abuse them.

Is it objectively morally right to try to resuscitate someone who has been electrocuted?

You keep throwing more and more moral situations at me. I only have to prove once that objective morality exists. As I know this game it will never end.

Once again, I'll remind you of your own words.

"All situations should have an objective moral position."

Yes that's right. But that only proves individual situations. If I say that love exists I only have to show one situation that demonstrates love to support that claim.

 

[stevevw]

Because we are a social species with empathy when we see others feeling happy it causes us to feel happy. So we do good things for others because it causes us to feel good. When we see others feeling sad, it causes us to feel sad. So we don't do bad things to others because it causes us to feel bad too. There are some rare folk who lack empathy, so I'm speaking generally here, not about every single human.

Even if I agreed with this logic it speaks nothing about morality. The primary motivation for this is based on sociobiological processes associated with the survival of the human species. The process may have caused us or tricked us to think it this as feeling or caring for others under some something called morality. But it is nothing more than chemical processes designed to keep us reproducing our DNA. It is just people trying to explain morality without appealing to a transient and independent moral agent.

Using the same logic we could say that as evolution changes with environments rather than cooperation what may be beneficial for survival in the future is a lack of empathy because there is not enough food for everyone to survive. Empathy will get you killed.

That is sort of happening now. People are becoming more selfish and looking after number 1. That's why we have a class society. The empathy you are talking about isn't really a moral empathy as morals are not about feeling good or feeling bad. Feelings are more about hedonism and cannot or will not account for moral values like empathy.

And to further complicate things, we have the ability to rationalize things and convince ourselves of things that aren't true. So if we convince ourselves that some action of ours will not cause someone else to feel bad, even though that action will cause someone else to feel bad, empathy won't kick in and we can do that thing guilt free.

That's why an independent moral agent also accounts for moral obligations and duties because people become accountable for something outside human rationalization and justifications. they cannot get away with things as they know that it is God's law, not their own made-up laws that count. There will be a day of reckoning so even when they think no one is looking and they can get away with it they still do the right thing.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[Kylie]

Logically killing more lives is morally worse IE more chance of kids without a parent, parents losing partners, people losing loved ones which can cause more harm and misery. But killing multiple times is always morally worse because it is multiplying that moral wrong. If the group of six got together and took precautions in case a trolley situation happened they would come to the same conclusion.

Always with the making excuses. You just can't see that it's subjective.

The problem with your scenario is you keep changing it assuming that the trolley driver knows the details of the ages and circumstances of the people involved. 90-year-olds don't work so that is unreal. But generally, the taking of 1 life is better than 5 as explained above and age should not change that.

I'm showing you how what is morally right changes because it's subjective. And again you are just trying to make excuses as to why it's invalid.

That's the Euthyphro dilemma. But this is a false dilemma as there is another alternative. God wills something because God's nature is good. He is the essence of good, the logos, or what Plato calls "the Good". By nature, God is just, loving, kind, compassionate, all the moral values. As God is naturally good his commandments (our moral duties) are reflected in God's nature and therefore are not grounded in anything external to God and God is not arbitrarily determining or commanding those morals to us.
Euthyphro dilemma - Wikipedia

Actually, what you said falls into the second condition.

Now, what would you do if God commanded you to kill someone?

Yes, that is called absolute morality where the act of killing is always wrong no matter what the situation. Objective morality only means that in every given situation there is an objectively right or wrong thing to do outside of human opinion.

And yet that is precisely what you did when you took a deliberate act to change the tracks to kill the one person.

Congratulations, you just violated your objective morality and claimed it was the moral thing to do.

I'm not saying that. I am saying you have to find out the cause that leads to harm or killing as it may not be the driver who is at fault. Say you are driving and someone had cut your brake line and you ran down someone because your brakes didn't work. Is the driver culpable or the person who cut the brakes. In the case of the train incident, the inquiry found that poor work practices in rehooking the carriages were the cause of the incident. That put the controller of the tracks in the trolley situation in the first place where he was forced to make that hard decision.

You have to take that into consideration. It isn't as though someone just decided to send a carriage into a house for the fun of it. That's why they have the inquiry to find out who contributed to the situation and was at fault.

Sounds like you're treating it as subjective.

Both the automated cars and the real-life situation are different from the "trolley thought experiment". The real-life situation allows all the attempts to avoid the incident and takes all the circumstances into consideration like poor work standards etc. It was the poor work standards that caused the runaway carriages. It allows human agency, humans to be humans and try everything to change the situation and it is in the trying that lives can be saved and harm avoided and shows that they care.

The same with the automated car in that contributing facts are taken into consideration. Like there are automated brakes that make a difference, the pedestrian contribution in jumping out in front of the car thus reducing culpability of the driver. And if the car is automated then how is the driver responsible for any killing anyway.

But the "trolley thought experiment" doesn't consider any of this. It puts a person in an unreal situation where no real-life contributing factors can be taken into consideration. It says the person has to sit there and drive the trolley into someone like a cardboard cutout. They can't yell to warn people or and mitigating circumstances like using brakes to slow down cannot be used. Anyone would hit the brakes.

But no there are no brakes on this make-believe trolley. If there are no brakes who is responsible for the brakes not working etc. That is why it is criticized as not only an unreal situation but a psychologically damaging situation to put a person into for trying to teach about ethical dilemmas.

Excuses excuses.

The criticism isn't about the end choice. It is about the "thought experiment" itself in putting a person in that unreal situation by taking away human agency for all the other choices and actions any normal human would take before it got to that point.

I gave you a real world issue where this applies and gave you a real world example of when it happened. Don't tell me that it's an unreal situation.

Yes there is subjective morality (that's personal opinion) and then there is objective morality (independent of people's views). So in any given moral situation, a person can take a subjective or objective moral position. But they cannot take both at the same time.

That's like saying there's objective and subjective mathematics. Doesn't work that way.

Yes but that will be according to God's laws and some situations may take more consideration than others to determine God's laws. But there will always be a determination.

Luckily everyone is in agreement about God's moral instructions, since they came from God.

Oh, wait...

As we are talking about morality in various situations then for people there will be a subjective or an objective moral position to take. Thus both subjective and objective morality will exist. But despite there being subjective morality from a secular worldview I am saying there are also objective moral values that will always apply to those situations. But people have a choice.

And in trying to defend your objective morality position, you are forced to ever more complicated ideas to explain things. It's not helping your position.

Yes I agree and it doesn't disprove it either. That's why showing that even one situation can be morally objective is important in supporting whether there are objective moral values. It is like me saying there is such a thing as anger. I only have to show one person being angry to support that there is anger. The same with objective moral values.

Remember, you haven't yet shown objective morality yet. You've just claimed you have, but all of your attempts to actually do so boil down to claiming that there must be objective morality because people act like their morality is objective.

From a human perspective, any given situation can have someone taking a subjective moral position and another taking an objective moral position. It is another story whether both can be true at the same time. I am not rejecting subjective morals positions but only saying objective morals are the moral value for any given situation.

And there are plenty of situations where you can not show any objective morality at all.

Is smacking an acceptable punishment for a child in any situation?

I am not sure what you mean.

You said morals need morals.

It's like the world turtle on the back of the elephant. The elephant needs an elephant to stand on. But since elephants need to stand on an elephant themselves, the second elephant needs to stand on a third elephant, which needs a fourth, and so on. It's turtles all the way down!

Of course, it does.
Morals need to belong to a system just like laws do. If you prove one law exists then you automatically prove a system of law exists. A law in isolation means nothing just like a moral in isolation means nothing. Say I prove that abusing a child is objectively wrong. What is the moral that applies to this situation, kindness, love, respect, dignity, justice? They all apply.

Not abusing a child is about treating human life as precious which is associated with many morals. That is why Christ said that all the law can be summed up in loving your neighbour as you love yourself. That is why the golden rule is held up as a coverall for many morals. Morals don't operate in isolation they are part of a bigger system. You cannot disconnect a moral with other morals.

Again you make claims and you fail to support those claims. WHY do morals need to belong to a system?

All you have are a series of assumptions and now you are being put into a position where you must justify those assumptions, and you are finding you can't.

Of course, they are objective. Everyone knows that it is always morally right to tenderly love and hold a child than sexually abuse them.

Such fine logical skills here. Of course I'm right, everyone knows it! That's a very subjective opinion you have there.

You keep throwing more and more moral situations at me. I only have to prove once that objective morality exists. As I know this game it will never end.

You still haven't done it! All you've done is claim that there must be objective morals because people act like there are. Yet you still fail to realise that people can act like their morals are objective even if they are subjective.

Yes that's right. But that only proves individual situations. If I say that love exists I only have to show one situation that demonstrates love to support that claim.

And how would you show that this hypothetical demonstration wasn't just an act?

 

[stevevw]

What theories are those? The theories I am aware of describe the universe back to just after the event which has come to be called the "big bang" and are unable to reach any conclusion as to what happened or what existed before that. "Science says the universe came from nothing" is a lie.

Yes, but they say that it was after this time that space, time, and matter came into being. When anyone describes this even they say this is when our universe began. They are pretty confident that our universe began but just not what was before that. But if time, space, and matter including our physical laws began with our universe this points to them not being there before that. So whatever caused our universe to come into being had to have been timeless, spaceless, and without matter. Even Alexander Vilenkin agrees with this.

What Came Before the Big Bang?
The universe had a distinct beginning — though he can’t pinpoint the time. After 35 years of looking backward, he says, he’s found that before our universe there was nothing, nothing at all, not even time itself.
What Came Before the Big Bang?

The Beginning of the Universe - a Singular Start
Pure scientific findings consistently point to only one conclusion: the universe had a singular start, an explosion, where everything we know--the universe, time, space, scientific laws we observe--all had a beginning.
Did God Create the Universe?

What is the Big Bang Theory?
Today, the consensus among scientists, astronomers and cosmologists is that the Universe as we know it was created in a massive explosion that not only created the majority of matter, but the physical laws that govern our ever-expanding cosmos. Not only does the model explain the origin of all known matter, the laws of physics, and the large scale structure of the Universe, it also accounts for the expansion of the Universe and a broad range of other phenomena.
https://phys.org/news/2015-12-big-theory.html

 

[stevevw]

Always with the making excuses. You just can't see that it's subjective.

So are you saying that there is no one best thing to do in this situation? Then if there is only a subjective moral position for this situation what is the right thing to do.

The problem is you keep thinking ABsolute morality is objective morality. So when you change scenarios you think if the objective moral changes it shows that morality is subjective. But that's not how objective morality works. Each time the situation changes so does the objective moral. The important differences between subjective morality are that in each different situation there is always one best thing to do regardless of subjective morality.

I'm showing you how what is morally right changes because it's subjective. And again you are just trying to make excuses as to why it's invalid.

In other words, under subjective morality, if it's a single person around 35 years old and the other 5 are the same age then its OK to take the single person out.
But if its a single child and a bunch of oldies we can commit mass murder. What if its a single child and 20 oldies. Should we take the 20 old dears out? I don't know why you are worried about which action is correct as there is no correct moral action under subjective morality.

Actually, what you said falls into the second condition.

The 3rd option I gave you doesn't apply to the 2nd option of Euthyphro's dilemma that "something is good because God wills it". That's because God is not willing anything (any good). But rather it is God's own nature that is good that determines what is good. It's like a water well of good and all that flows out of it is good and no one has to will anything. God's commands which constitute our moral duties are based upon his moral nature so God commands naturally flow from this and God is not commanding anything.

Now, what would you do if God commanded you to kill someone?

Today God does not command anyone to kill. That was back in the Old Testament times for God's people only in carry out God's plan. I cannot pretend to be something I am not or able to even contemplate. God was communicating directly with his prophets, not like today as this was before Jesus.

And yet that is precisely what you did when you took a deliberate act to change the tracks to kill the one person.

Congratulations, you just violated your objective morality and claimed it was the moral thing to do.

How does this violate objective morality?

Sounds like you're treating it as subjective.

So your saying determining if a wrong has been done in the first place is taking a subjective position. Isn't that why they have an inquiry to determine if a wrong has been done and that someone is responsible and how culpable they are.

Excuses excuses.

So your saying people are not allowed to try and save someone.

I gave you a real-world issue where this applies and gave you a real-world example of when it happened. Don't tell me that it's an unreal situation.

No, I am saying the "Trolley thought experiment" is an unreal situation. I provided the evidence for this. The difference with the real-world example of the runaway carriages is that the people involved were allowed to try everything to avoid harm. It was in the trying that made it real and allow human agency.

That's like saying there's objective and subjective mathematics. It doesn't work that way.

So if someone says in my view 2 + 2 = 5 and another person says no objectively 2 + 2 = 4 isn't that having both a subjective and objective at the same time. Remember subjective views are just personal opinions so people can claim whatever they like IE a person's subjective view that the earth is flat. An objective view is the earth is round. The same with morals.

Luckily everyone is in agreement about God's moral instructions, since they came from God.

Oh, wait...

God's moral laws are based on Christ's teachings. All Christ-ians know this. Christ's teachings are clearly seen in the New Testament.

And in trying to defend your objective morality position, you are forced to ever more complicated ideas to explain things. It's not helping your position.

No, I am forced to more complicated determinations because you are presenting more and more complicated situations.

Remember, you haven't yet shown objective morality yet. You've just claimed you have, but all of your attempts to actually do so boil down to claiming that there must be objective morality because people act like their morality is objective.

The logical argument I presented still stands. You have to come up with a defeater of that logical argument that you haven't done yet. That's how arguments are made. A person makes a logical argument then you have to defeat that argument.

But while you are coming up with the defeater I will give you an objective moral that you would also have to show is not objective remembering that objective morals are always right regardless of subjective morality. So it is objectively wrong to sexually abuse a child for fun. You now need to show how sexually abusing a child for fun is a good moral.

And there are plenty of situations where you can not show any objective morality at all.

But that doesn't mean that there can be a possible objective moral that can be found or determined.

Is smacking an acceptable punishment for a child in any situation?

I'm not going to keep playing this game of a never-ending presentation of moral situations. They don't prove anything.

Gee that was a challenging post, thanks I think.

 

[Ken-1122]

Emotions are feelings. Feelings are a physical sensation, a tactile sensation. When you feel butterflies, you feel the emotion of nervousness.

So how does morality fit into that picture? What feelings do you think come from morality?

Your emotion of nervousness doesn't "come from" your sense of touch. Your sense of touch is how you process the experience; the experience "came from" whatever external stimuli caused you to feel nervous. If you place your hand in a fire, the burning sensation "comes from" the fire, not your sense of touch. If you eat chocolate ice cream, the sweet flavor "comes from" the sugar, not your sense of taste. Why is this bizarre "comes from" phrasing of yours important?

Because I said; my moral judgments come from my thoughts; which you objected to.

Look at this sentence: "I believe I am right". The word "right" refers back to the word "I". I'm talking about how the English language works grammatically. You didn't mention "your views"

I don't have to. My views are a part of who I am; when I say I am right, I am saying my views are right.

You've said that already. What's wrong with being unfair?

I prefer equal treatment because I know what it feels like to be on the wrong end of unequal treatment so I have empathy.

Okay, so you feel negative emotions because the murdered person feels negative emotions.

I didn't say anything about the murdered person feeling negative emotions!

 

[Caliban]

Still you didn’t study her liver function before you claimed you knew her and loved her. Why i dust you have to understand trinity before you can know and understand God?

How did you come to know your spouse? You talked to her and she revealed herself to you. If she had told you nothing you still wouldn’t know her even if you did know all about her liver functions.

Now, if you don’t believe He’s there, He won’t reveal much if anything to you for obvious reasons. The Bible is written by men who knew God to varying degrees. We benefit from their knowledge and experience.

But only God can actually reveal Himself to a man. We are not in charge of that relationship or how much he reveals.

You have missed my point completely. I did not say a person must understand the concept of the Trinity to know God. I claimed the concept of the Trinity is an illogical construct. Meaning, it is logically impossible they way it is presented my orthodox Christian confessions (both Catholic and Protestant). People are always saying that it required faith or that maybe we don't fully understand the nature of that god somehow. It is like believing 2+2= 4 and 5. Maybe there are other qualities of 5 we just don't understand yet, but it will be revealed in the future. Sure maybe. But until then, I don't believe it because right now, it is irrational.

 

[Caliban]

Your own words betray the blindness you deny. You choose to describe the claims of Christ as “impossible” showing us that your eyes are already shut tight. Those who have predetermined the claims are impossible without looking at the evidence don’t WANT to see any. That is a kind of blindness.

You are not actively reading my responses. I am here engaging in conversation with you and other Christians on this forum--what makes you think my eyes are "shut tight?" You don't have to insult me or my position simply because I have arrived at a different conclusion from you after studying the text. If you want to discuss it without the snide, triggered comments, I am open to that.