When two worldviews collide.

[Pommer]

But surely that is not a license to sin with impunity, is it. If a christian hangs onto the doctrine of OSAS, it could be very discouraging for them in a hard time when they find themselves regressing, in another word, backsliding.

This is “faith-dependent”, if a man allows himself meat that is sacrificed to idols, he does himself no harm.

 

[Jonathan_Gale]

Being saved doesn't mean we magically have no sin. It means that we continually seek to become more like Christ. The difference is once we did not bother, sin reined over us. Now we bother and seek perfection in Christ. Being renewed in Christ doesn't mean in an instant. It means we are continually renewing ourselves in spirit and mind. God is molding us as the Potter and we are the clay. Learning to trust Gods Will more and more with our life rather than our will.

Its a continual fight and that is why Paul speaks about putting on the armour of God to fight off temptations and the deception of satan.
Technically we can become like Christ in the end if we continue to trust in Him and His Word. But its a continuing fight against our sinful nature.

Yeah, that's the new nature, which is encrypted in the name of Israel - "struggling with God." This is known as the sanctification process, a journey of a lifetime. A christian is JUSTIFIED at once by the blood of Christ, but he continues to SANCTIFY himself for the kingdom to come. OSAS is a bit of oversimplification.

 

[stevevw]

Yeah, that's the new nature, which is encrypted in the name of Israel - "struggling with God." This is known as the sanctification process, a journey of a lifetime. A christian is JUSTIFIED at once by the blood of Christ, but he continues to SANCTIFY himself for the kingdom to come. OSAS is a bit of oversimplification.

 

[stevevw]

But surely that is not a license to sin with impunity, is it. If a christian hangs onto the doctrine of OSAS, it could be very discouraging for them in a hard time when they find themselves regressing, in another word, backsliding.

Paul covers this in Romans 6.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Look I think its best if you refer to the articles rather than take my words for it. I may be wrong.

Unfortunately, the people writing the articles frequently get it wrong and are never held accountable.

Consider the double slit experiment. There's probably a few dozen articles, right now, that claim the experiment shows that we can control reality with our minds. We can't. It's just because of the authors not understanding what the term "observer" refers to in this experiment.

There's also the Implicit Association Test...which is a test so unreliable its basically worthless to anyone doing real science. This was already known when it was touted as a viable explanation for all sorts of things in many articles.

So I strongly suggest, always look at the research.

You made the comment about how we can tell if babies have this moral sense. I then referred to infants who could engage more to express this moral sense in practical ways in the experiments because they were older and we could see this in their behaviour and choices.

That seems to be the claim you're making....and it doesn't hold up. Toddlers and verbal children are already being acculturated into their social groups moral norms...

They won't prove anything about the babies.

As for the babies...the only group I saw attempting to replicate the findings was in NZ. They immediately noticed a problem with the methodology and tested it out. They celebratory "bounce" by the helper or "good guy" and the loud banging motion/sound of the "bad guy" character was what the babies were responding to. They changed the bad guy animation so he did a celebratory bounce after hindering the main character....and suddenly the babies chose the bad guy overwhelmingly. When the good guy banged into the main character to help him up the hill....babies didn't like the good guy.

In short...babies don't have a rudimentary sense of justice. Instead, they responded emotionally to certain stimuli and that was misinterpreted by the researchers.

But I said the same moral sense was also said to be in babies through experiments on eye movement (fixated on the good guy).

This was to show that this moral sense is there from birth or at least very early. This was supported by different researchers with independent tests to support this. As far as I understand this is pretty good science as its repeated time and time again.

The replication and peer review that you think is happening in this field literally isn't happening. It's sad, but that's why I pointed it out. One of the biggest names in behavioural psychology had 50+ research papers redacted because they falsified data. If the peer review process wasn't broken, if replication was happening, these people wouldn't have highly respected careers that span decades. It's a broken process.

A growing body of evidence, though, suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first year of life. Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.
The Moral Life of Babies (Published 2010)

Result shows that humans may have a natural tendency to punish bad behavior, and it may actually be a trait that we are born with and while it may be fine-tuned as a infant grows into a child, the framework is already there.
Third-party punishment by preverbal infants - Nature Human Behaviour

'We think children are born with a skeleton of general expectations about fairness and these principles and concepts get shaped in different ways depending on the culture and the environment they’re brought up in.
Research shows toddlers understand right from wrong at just 19 months

Therefore, this systematic review collated the various conclusions to reach a reasonable consensus, that the moral sense is a natural ability that every human is born with, and this natural ability can be nurtured through social interactions and by environmental factors.
Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

I also said this moral sense is not exactly morality itself. Its a sensitivity to be moral, a sensitivity for the suffering of others (empathy) which seems to be expressed with justice, kindness, fairness and alturism. But it hasn't been developed.

If the babies change their reactions when you change which character does a celebratory bounce...then it seems unlikely that babies are passing moral judgements about bad guys and good guys. I'm not going to bother quoting the problems about fairness that the researchers admit exists.

Its like a ready made framework to be moral.

I'd call it an emotional reaction to stimuli.

If we did not have this we would not bother with the concept of morality.

I don't see how you conclude that. We're social animals. We work together and form groups. We would still need to do this to survive as species. Moral norms are a sort of negotiation for group interaction.

This may explain how this moral sense is later refined into the different cultural influences. The articles I linked showing that certain moral principles like fairness, kindness, justice, courage were universal in cultures regadless of their different refinements of this moral sense.

They didn't show that at all.

Each culture may be just applying these moral principles differently.

This is akin to saying "We all think good is good and bad is bad. It's only when we get into detail about what we each mean by good and bad that we realize we disagree."

It's such a benign and meaningless statement, it would be shocking if it came out of any field other than anthropology. It is terrifying to imagine someone received money to do this research.

I attempted to further support this from other areas of science such as biology,

I didn't see any biological research.

anthropology

Possibly the least useful field. It's a hobby for children who have rich parents.

and sociology

Sadly, not much better than anthropology. Sociology can explain what is happening but it runs into trouble. For example, if a mayor wants to know where all the shoplifting and petty theft is happening in his city, who is doing it, and how much it's costing...good sociologists can gather that data and explain what is happening. If the mayor asks why it's happening....and the sociologist wants to continue getting funding....they can either explain that it's a combination of not supporting police, removing bail requirements for those crimes, and raising the price tags on shoplifting....or he can not consider those factors and play around with statistics before making the "educated guess" that "systemic racism" or "poverty" are the problems.

One of those answers gets the sociologist more work....the other gets his research buried and another sociologist steps in to do the same job.

to show that different research seems to converge on these findings. Though perhaps not a very good job. But all of this is to show that the old view that we come to the world with nothing and need to be taught morality from scratch is wrong.

Well I don't think we're coming in with nothing. We're coming in with emotions and social groups to either conform to or we find ourselves struggling alone.

I think the moral subjectivist/relativist would like to think we are a blank slate morally because it feeds into morality being a complete social construction and that there are not moral objectives.

Well thats part of the interesting thought experiment I've tried several times to get you to answer despite your repeated attempts to avoid it. The absence of a social group or even the possibility of being judged by a social group leaves us in a state absent of any moral views or judgments. I can't think of anything moral or immoral I can do in that scenario.....and if we had these moral truths or intuitions that you seem to believe in, they should still exist regardless of the absence of a social group or their judgments.

All our behavior would simply be described as either furthering a goal or not....and absent of any goals, it's just a behavior we engaged in for whatever reason we chose.

Now, as a theist....I wouldn't be surprised if you claimed that you still had some moral principles to follow....because you believe in a God that wants you to behave in certain ways and you cannot avoid his judgment. This is perhaps the reason why we invent gods....to explain why some of us still feel the need to behave in certain ways absent from any social group. I would suggest that it's merely a result of the indoctrination of your religion. If you were to become an atheist...you'd find that last judge gone, that last constant constraint on your choices missing. No morals to describe or define but whatever ones you create for yourself.

And that's an interesting indicator of where morality comes from....who makes it and how it is impressed upon you. Your social group, to a certainty, is the biggest influence on your morals....though if you have a God, I'd imagine he's a close second, even if you'd imagine him first. There's no shortage of believers in prison after all....and their moral norms are wildly different from those outside of prison. In fact, all sorts of circumstances can wildly shift one's morals....but we need not get into that.

I'm also well aware of those who claim that without a God they see no reason to follow any morals....and I'm certainly not trying to convince them that God doesn't exist or that without him morals aren't real....because if that's what they need to figure out how to behave, then I definitely don't wish to take that from them.

The woke are certainly moralists if nothing else. They pretend to blame "systems" and "hierarchies" of groups that have different morals from themselves....but in reality, they blame everyone who disagrees with their floating, shifting, and baseless sense of morality. They believe that because they are the good people, and all who disagree are either the bad people or those "complicit with them"....they are justified in both forcing their morality onto others and punishing anyone who refuses to go along with them. Look at Mr Peterson and his current dilemma. He became famous for standing up to them on the grounds that they had no right to compel speech from him. His detractors said he was being impolite and hurtful. He said that he couldn't agree with them on principle alone....and if they continued down their current path, people like him would be punished in the future. They laughed at him, said he was ridiculously overreacting....and now they are punishing him....for speaking his mind, on a subject he's an expert in. He was correct about not only his own rights....and his persecution....but their authoritarian nature, and what ends they would justify to silence him.

There are woke people who probably genuinely believe they are helping victims of some sort. People who are victims of an unjust society. Their "victims" aren't actually victims though....

The "victims" they pretend to champion are whatever group they believe will win them the most political power, which they use to spread their religion. It was black people for most of Trump's presidency....now it seems to be trans people. Black people weren't really victims though...there was less than 2 dozen questionable killings of black people by police on any given year. An extremely tiny number. They don't even have a number of "trans youth" commiting suicide....it's just a story of victimization. Much like the innocent black men unjustly shot dead by police...I'm sure if we look really hard, we can find examples of some trans youths killing themselves over their personal trans struggles on any given year.

It's not about victims though. It's about political power. BLM didn't help any black people....didn't spend a thin dime on black victims....and that's despite raising millions. Black people were shamefully tossed aside by the woke once they won the election. They weren't even thanked for their help....their communities were devastated by the woke, and anyone who dares to implement their political policies only hurts black communities more. These children aren't being helped by the woke either....just used for political power until they can safely be tossed aside for some other group. Just as they wouldn't admit to the devastating effects of BLM....trans affirmative care will leave a pile of bodies and broken families and communities in its wake as well.

The ignorant woke who genuinely believe they are doing good I can forgive once they abandon their new religion and fake morality. The ones that use this religion for profit, and personal gain, and seek to punish those who disagree are the worst people I've ever had the displeasure of sharing a society with. I don't think I'd even speak a word against any injustice that comes their way.

This morality of political gain called the "woke" religion is near to running its course. I don't know anyone who likes them and they try to pretend that they aren't the woke anymore hoping to rebrand themselves. They never help anyone....only themselves....and it's entirely driven by hate. Hatred for white men, Republicans, Christians, the straight and men and women who aren't confused about being men or women is the only point of this....and that hate gets old after awhile. They don't know what to do with the political power it gains them except for spreading the religion and trying to convince people to continue to hate. Consider that the FBI had to create a group of militia men, organize the group, arm them, create plans for kidnapping and killing a governor.....and it still didn't quite work out because there was so many FBI that it looked entirely set up to even a jury. This was done because they were told to fight these white supremacists who were supposed to be lurking around every corner....yet they didn't catch the one in Buffalo in time, nor that recent one in Florida. The woke need enemies to thrive....but corporate sponsorship just makes them look like tyrants and lame ones at that....instead of the victims they pretend to be. They fail so badly with the political power they're so effective at gaining....they're losing support from the very groups they claim to champion.

They haven't struck gold with any new victim groups....and are running low on enemy groups because the non-woke are increasingly diverse without even trying. They have been pushing for "Christian nationalists" to be the new big enemy....but no one is really buying it. Christians seem harmless compared to the woke....who might destroy your brand (bud light) your family (because your children obsess over gender and race and sexuality) and your very society (which they call evil, and racist, despite pushing racism and sexism and inviting in human traffickers under the guise of asylum).

The woke I think are destroying themselves. There's no moral underpinnings to blatant bigotry and hatred of political enemies. The woke don't offer anyone any help...they just offer a chance to scream at the people that a few hate....guilt free.

I don't know what point there is to arguing morality with you. You're unsurprisingly convinced that your "justice" is the correct justice...and everyone who disagrees has something wrong with them. I would imagine you also think your "fairness" or "kindness" are also the correct ones and other ideas of fairness or kindness are similarly corrupted or twisted by those without your true understanding of morality.

 

[Jonathan_Gale]

Paul cover this in Romans 6.

You see, like many other doctrines, OSAS seems to be a biblically sound doctrine, it doesn’t contradict any passages, but the problem of OSAS lies within its implications - you’re either free to sin without any repercussions, or you’re not really saved from the beginning.

 

[Pommer]

You see, like many other doctrines, OSAS seems to be a biblically sound doctrine, it doesn’t contradict any passages, but the problem of OSAS lies within its implications - you’re either free to sin without any repercussions, or you’re not really saved from the beginning.

What (whatever) God(s) do with my being after I die is none of my concern, really.

 

[friend of]

What (whatever) God(s) do with my being after I die is none of my concern, really.

Why not?

 

[Pommer]

Why not?

I’ve no evidence that my consciousness goes on after my brain ceases to function.

 

[Jonathan_Gale]

What (whatever) God(s) do with my being after I die is none of my concern, really.

I get it, man. Many people don't realize that the afterlife is the continuation of the current life, your trajectory of life determines your direction in the afterlife.

 

[Bradskii]

I get it, man. Many people don't realize that the afterlife is the continuation of the current life, your trajectory of life determines your direction in the afterlife.

On what do you base this?

 

[Jonathan_Gale]

On what do you base this?

"He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.” - Rev. 22:11

 

[Jonathan_Gale]

On what do you base this?

Btw, if bible verse quote is too abhorrent to you, just think about it as a kind of inertia.

 

[Bradskii]

"He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.” - Rev. 22:11

The next verse says: 'and I will give to each person according to what they have done.'

It says nothing at all about the afterlife being a continuation of the current life.

 

[Jonathan_Gale]

The next verse says: 'and I will give to each person according to what they have done.'

It says nothing at all about the afterlife being a continuation of the current life.

Don't you see that this is set in the context of afterlife, continuing from the resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous in Rev. 20? What they have done is in the current life, what will be given is in the afterlife.

 

[stevevw]

Could you give an example of non-naturalistic evidence that we could consider?

Yeah, conscious experience, experience of colors, music, transcendent abstracts like beauty. Money is another where the paper or metal its made of is one aspect of something real materially but there is also the concept applied which is real and has an effect on the world. Morality or values is another as they actually have a tangent effect on the world. I think even the laws of nature and physics are non material like math they point to a mind behind what is happening that transcends naturalistic determinations. .

Scientists do admit their findings are tentative.

yes but they are not tentative and open to all possibilities. They are tentative until another naturalistic idea can update or replace it. In that sense its a belief because the metaphysical position is assumed and taken before any investigation is done.

More importantly, it's rather difficult to measure the non-physical establish its existence or otherwise demonstrate its casual nature.

Only because the determination is limited to naturalistic and material ideas. If there are other influences happening beyond what science can measure that effect reality, our reality then methodelogical naturalism is only getting part of the picture and may even be interpreting non-physical aspects as physical. ie Dark matter, consciousness ect.

Example?

Well I think our moral sense is one. If morality and belief in something transcendent beyond the material world is innate then we come to this knowing without having to learn or experience it. Similar to math I woul think.

Well that begs the question then....you and someone else disagree on what is good or what is bad. How do you determine which of you is true?

We know its true because people live that reality regardless of what they say or claim to believe. In other words they are their own witness of its truth. For example going back to honesty in our debate. Whether you believe honesty is a real thing that holds status beyond individual beliefs or preferences you subscribe to its truth or fact status by engaging with me in a debate where honesty is necessary to a coherent debate.

If as universals seem to show that we should treat each other with dignity and worth then we could reasoning out what behaviour is good or bad in relation to this.

I don't think one needs moral judgements to describe what is happening.

Really, when it comes to how we treat each other I think this comes down to morality. If we treated it any other way like an ordinary everday situation like at work say there are situations where morality doesn't come into it. But they can become ethical and that is why we have codes of ethics (prescriptions) and not instruction manuals (descriptions) for our behaviour towards others.

Fallacies aren't about honesty. They're about logical reasoning.

But the fallacy or misrepresentation can be used to be dishonest in avoiding or denying the truth or facts.

All that honesty refers to is an attempt to represent your view without deception.

Or the facts and truth of the matter. If someone does not want to face the truth that they got something wrong and make misrepresentations or twist the truth then this is a moral issue.

Lol honesty is just an abstraction. You haven't phrased it as a moral principle.

Its an abstraction that is made real though when someone descieves or misrepresents. It can change the course of history lol, fake news, false accusations, denying justice, biased reporting, ommissions which effect peoples lives and the outcomes of events which may have knock on effects, proving a theory, winning a debate.

Again, you're trying to assert a principle from an abstract concept.

Math is an abstract but it becomes real when we apply it to situations. Just like morals such as honesty. Honesty covers a number of qualities like trustworthyness, sincerity, integrity, fairness and will depend on the situation. But for the example I am giving with honesty in a debate or discussion to find the truth or fact of the matter then its about telling the truth and facts and not misrepresenting, lying or being decietful.

The principle of honesty implies a general prohibition against falsifying, fabricating, or misrepresenting data, results, or other types of information pertaining to scientific publication.

It can also be about honesty to self and others
Honesty, speaking and acting truthfully, is more than not lying, deceiving, stealing, or cheating. It entails showing respect towards others and having integrity and self-awareness.

Merriam-Webster defines honesty as "fairness and straightforwardness of conduct" or "adherence to the facts".

 

[stevevw]

Premise 1 fails to show why epistemic facts are contingent upon moral facts.

I have sort of explained this above in how we assume honesty as a way of coming to know the truth or facts (epistemically) and therefore sometimes this epistemic fact is entangled with and leads to morality such as not lying to avoid the truth.

They aren't universal if some disagree.

Something being universally true or factual doesn't mean everyone has to agree. Its a universal truth that the earth revolves around the sun no matter which location or culture you belong to. Its a fact. But some people disagree with this but that doesn't change the fact or truth of the matter.

The same with morals. Its a universal moral truth that murder is wrong. We have witnessed its wrongness, lived its reality throughout history. Just like we have witnessed the sun rise and set around the earth or through telescopes.

Just because some disagree and think murder morally good doesn't change the universal status. Some cultures disagree with Universal Human Rights but we will still hold them accountable like they are just plain wrong like someone would be about the earth not rotating the sun.

You've made 2 logical fallacies here...

1. If we were in agreement on a moral judgement, it would become a fact.
2. Those who disagree do so out of a personal defect...not because they believe themselves correct.

1 is arguement by popularity. 2 is ad hominem...a personal attack.

Actually for number 1 I was pointing out a fallacy from non-objectivists that moral disagreement means theres no objective morals. For number 2 people can be both disagreeing out of personal defect and believe they are correct.

Moral realism is more about a categorical issue about morality. That these situations demand a right or wrong determination. That when dealing with moral situations people are expressing something into the world that something is either right or wrong, that these expressions are sometimes true and not some delusion.

So when people are disagree or agreeing they are doing so because of moralities normative nature rather than their personal positions. Though they are personally invested they are nonetheless objectively invested beyond the personal and towards the situation, the behaviour and act itself.

The article you linked was from anthropologists....not scientists. When they claim that all 60 of these cultures value justice...they include those that ascribe to mob justice, which you don't consider justice at all.

That doesn't seem right because along with justice there were other values like reciprocity, respect and fairness and as the article says these moral values are based on cooperation and not conflict. Thats is why they are universal because they work to help people living together in relative peace an harmony.

So these will conflict with mob justice as I don't think the mob would want to be treated in the same way they treat others. They would know its not fair nor respects others by the fact that they don't apply that same rule to themselves or maybe those within the group they protect. They will know it doesn't foster cooperation because the idea of mod rule is the opposite, not cooperating and causing conflict.

We don't...at least, I don't.

Thats silly. You would not condemn a culture that say abuses kids, trafficks them as sex slaves. Even if you don't the majority do including our representatives internationally by ratifying Human Rights. I mean we even condemn and prosecute our own citizens when they engage in such activities.

Those tribes see it as morally good. This isn't something new. I've seen "free Palestine" protesters shocked to learn Palestinian people believe gay people should be stoned to death.

That implies if they are shocked that they realise they underestimated the Palestinians morality and that they are doing something morally wrong. That there is a right and wrong behaviour rather than tolerating all behaviour as acceptable just because cultures have differing beliefs.

Just because a tribe sees what most decent people would see as morally bad as morally good doesn't mean there is no way to say that they are acting immoral. Thats there is no determination beyond the cultures about what is right and wrong. That seems like an unreal aned strange worled where no one can ever say anything is wrong about other cultures even when their on our door step or undermining our own culture or world peace and order.

No...the problem isn't that we disagree, it's that nobody can prove a moral fact.

Prove a moral fact in what way. Perhaps your assuming that moral facts must be proven in a certain way.

You have to start with the assumption that objective reality exists or nothing is "true".

Actually its not just assuming objective reality exists but assuming its the only way to show what exists. Which is an unsupportede assumption and a metaphysical belief. There is no way to verify that there exists an objective reality beyond our heads.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Yeah, conscious experience,

I have no idea what your conscious experience is.

It's not evidence we can examine.

experience of colors,

Fun fact. We don't actually know we see the same colors. If my red looks like your yellow and my yellow your red....we wouldn't know.

There was a sort of brief and controversial online event a few years back about the color of a dress in a picture. Some people saw one color....others another. No one was lying or playing games....and it sparked an argument for a few days.

We Finally Know Why People Saw “The Dress” Differently

The science behind why people saw different colors.

slate.com

music,

Perhaps you've never met anyone tone deaf.

transcendent abstracts like beauty.

Opinions.

Money is another where the paper or metal its made of is one aspect of something real materially but there is also the concept applied which is real and has an effect on the world.

I don't know what you're getting at here. Money represents something.

Morality or values is another as they actually have a tangent effect on the world.

This and everything else you just described is what we call "the subjective".

I don't think you are intending to argue morals are subjective.

I think even the laws of nature and physics are non material like math they point to a mind behind what is happening that transcends naturalistic determinations.

Laws of nature aren't "laws". They're descriptions.

Only because the determination is limited to naturalistic and material ideas.

You're free to include subjective ideas...and it seems like you're grouping morals into that realm.

If there are other influences happening beyond what science can measure that effect reality, our reality then methodelogical naturalism is only getting part of the picture

Subjective experiences are considered a part of objective materialistic reality.

Well I think our moral sense is one. If morality and belief in something transcendent beyond the material world is innate then we come to this knowing without having to learn or experience it.

Then it shouldn't be such a problem for you to provide answers to my thought experiment.

We know its true because people live that reality regardless of what they say or claim to believe.

I have no idea what you mean by this. You just appealed to subjective beliefs and experiences as a type of evidence. Now you're telling me that you don't believe people's subjective beliefs about morality.

In other words they are their own witness of its truth. For example going back to honesty in our debate.

When you make a statement about reality or your opinions....you are either trying to deceive me or not. We call the times you are trying to deceive me lying and when you aren't you're being honest.

Whether you believe honesty is a real thing

Has nothing to do with it being a real thing.

If I didn't believe it were a thing, a description of two possibilities regarding statements people make, then I would have to imagine everyone was lying to me.

Really, when it comes to how we treat each other I think this comes down to morality. If we treated it any other way like an ordinary everday situation like at work say there are situations where morality doesn't come into it. But they can become ethical and that is why we have codes of ethics (prescriptions) and not instruction manuals (descriptions) for our behaviour towards others.

Descriptive behavior isn't an instruction manual. If I say James shot David...it's not a moral judgement, just a description of what happened.

But the fallacy or misrepresentation can be used to be dishonest in avoiding or denying the truth or facts.

That's not what they are though. The fallacy of the fallacy is the assumption that just because a fallacy was used in forming a conclusion....that conclusion must be false. For example, if I decide that 2+2=4 because a lot of people have told me so, I've used the fallacy of popularity to arrive at the correct answer....not logical reasoning.

Or the facts and truth of the matter.

Wrong. People can be completely honest and still be completely wrong about the facts or truth of the matter.

Its an abstraction that is made real though when someone descieves or misrepresents.

Lol no...it's an abstraction because you haven't explained why honesty is good or bad or when. There's no principle attached. Is honesty good? Bad? Does that ever change?

The principle of honesty implies a general prohibition against falsifying, fabricating, or misrepresenting data, results, or other types of information pertaining to scientific publication.

It can also be about honesty to self and others
Honesty, speaking and acting truthfully, is more than not lying, deceiving, stealing, or cheating. It entails showing respect towards others and having integrity and self-awareness.

Merriam-Webster defines honesty as "fairness and straightforwardness of conduct" or "adherence to the facts".

So you can't think of any situations where being dishonest might be a good thing?

 

[Ana the Ist]

I have sort of explained this above in how we assume honesty as a way of coming to know the truth or facts (epistemically) and therefore sometimes this epistemic fact is entangled with and leads to morality such as not lying to avoid the truth.

I've never heard of any epistemology based on honesty. As I explained above...one can be completely honest and completely wrong.

Something being universally true or factual doesn't mean everyone has to agree.

I would suggest you avoid the word "universal" as I thought you meant universally agreed upon.

Its a universal truth that the earth revolves around the sun no matter which location or culture you belong to. Its a fact.

True...and in many cultures, this wasn't the belief of anyone. We can also say that the people who believed the earth was at the center of the universe were completely honest and completely wrong.

But some people disagree with this but that doesn't change the fact or truth of the matter.

Right. We can prove this with evidence.

The same with morals. Its a universal moral truth that murder is wrong.

We can say that you think this is a moral truth. Let's leave the word universal out of it.

How would you propose to prove this truth?

Just because some disagree and think murder morally good doesn't change the universal status.

If you think it describes some fact of reality....you're correct that it doesn't matter if anyone agrees.

Some cultures disagree with Universal Human Rights but we will still hold them accountable like they are just plain wrong like someone would be about the earth not rotating the sun.

No we don't. We didn't hold the Chinese accountable for the Uigher genocide. We didn't even hold our own government accountable for infringing upon our freedom of speech.

Actually for number 1 I was pointing out a fallacy from non-objectivists that moral disagreement means theres no objective morals.

Ok.

For number 2 people can be both disagreeing out of personal defect and believe they are correct.

True. I don't know how you would know this though. It seems like a strong assumption to make about someone without any evidence.

Moral realism is more about a categorical issue about morality. That these situations demand a right or wrong determination. That when dealing with moral situations people are expressing something into the world that something is either right or wrong,

Good or bad. Use good or bad when referring to morals so we don't confuse them with factual correctness.

Remember, we can describe behaviour in a factually correct manner without any moral judgements...

James shot David. That's something we can be factually right or wrong about without ever discussing the morality of the act.

that these expressions are sometimes true and not some delusion.

Again, you haven't offered any method for proving a moral true.

That doesn't seem right because along with justice there were other values like reciprocity,

Reciprocity is another abstraction.

respect and fairness

Abstractions. Perhaps they think mob justice is a reciprocal method of establishing fairness when someone has disrespected another.

and as the article says these moral values are based on cooperation and not conflict.

The point of all moral norms is to allow people within the social group to work together. Even the mafia has to cooperate with each other to work together.

Thats silly. You would not condemn a culture that say abuses kids, trafficks them as sex slaves.

Is my condemnation going to change the culture? No.

Is my condemnation necessary to convince you that I don't think they are morally good? I doubt it.

Are we engaged in some debate where I need to convince you that their behaviour is morally wrong? Seems unlikely.

How odd would it be that if out of the blue....in the middle of some conversation we were having....I just decided to share with you my personal views on child sex slavery?

Imagine we dropped you into a pashtun Afghani tribe...and they take you in and feed you because they have these moral norms about hospitality and strangers. My guess is that if they invite you to a gang rape of a child that night before driving out of the region and to the only airport in the nation the next morning....you'd probably just politely decline and not risk offending them so you can get yourself out of there alive.

Or would you spend the evening telling them how evil they are? How committed are you to that honesty principle? How about that justice principle? Seems pretty disrespectful to decline their gift....are you gonna partake?

That implies if they are shocked that they realise they underestimated the Palestinians morality and that they are doing something morally wrong. That there is a right and wrong behaviour rather than tolerating all behaviour as acceptable just because cultures have differing beliefs.

I think they bought into a viewpoint that simplifies morality to a factual good and bad and as the "oppressed"...they expected them to share their ideas of what is morally good.

Just because a tribe sees what most decent people would see as morally bad as morally good doesn't mean there is no way to say that they are acting immoral.

Of course there's a way to say it. You just did. You can't prove it though.

Thats there is no determination beyond the cultures about what is right and wrong.

Good and bad.

Prove a moral fact in what way.

I'm open to any way you can think of.

We seem to agree that it doesn't matter if everyone agrees or disagrees....so I'll assume you won't try to prove it those ways.

I can't even think of a starting point for proving a moral fact so I'm interested to see you try.

Actually its not just assuming objective reality exists but assuming its the only way to show what exists. Which is an unsupportede assumption and a metaphysical belief. There is no way to verify that there exists an objective reality beyond our heads.

Again, you're the one insisting moral facts exist. This sounds like an admission that you won't be able to prove they exist as objective truths....like the earth circling the sun.

 

[stevevw]

Unfortunately, the people writing the articles frequently get it wrong and are never held accountable.

Consider the double slit experiment. There's probably a few dozen articles, right now, that claim the experiment shows that we can control reality with our minds. We can't. It's just because of the authors not understanding what the term "observer" refers to in this experiment.

There's also the Implicit Association Test...which is a test so unreliable its basically worthless to anyone doing real science. This was already known when it was touted as a viable explanation for all sorts of things in many articles.

So I strongly suggest, always look at the research.

I have read the research and as far as I can see it stands up. Its repreated science many times over and from independent areas of science and related fields. I mean when one article makes claims you can be skeptical. But when many converge on the same findings its strengthens the case. Thats exactly how other areas like evolution gain their status. Once again I think you may need to look at the research once again linked below.

That seems to be the claim you're making....and it doesn't hold up. Toddlers and verbal children are already being acculturated into their social groups moral norms...

Like I said toddelers are being encultured b ased on the same moral sense that babies have which they are born with. Each culture is just defining that moral sense with their version of the same sense. You can't enculture a toddler that doesn't have some pre recodnition of morals mattering. You can't teach that into people.

You can teach a specific interpretation and rules based on that sense but you can't teach that moral sense no more than you can enculture a primate to be moral like humans. The pre wiring for that moral sense is just not there no matter how hard we try.

They won't prove anything about the babies.

As for the babies...the only group I saw attempting to replicate the findings was in NZ. They immediately noticed a problem with the methodology and tested it out. They celebratory "bounce" by the helper or "good guy" and the loud banging motion/sound of the "bad guy" character was what the babies were responding to. They changed the bad guy animation so he did a celebratory bounce after hindering the main character....and suddenly the babies chose the bad guy overwhelmingly. When the good guy banged into the main character to help him up the hill....babies didn't like the good guy.

In short...babies don't have a rudimentary sense of justice. Instead, they responded emotionally to certain stimuli and that was misinterpreted by the researchers.
The replication and peer review that you think is happening in this field literally isn't happening. It's sad, but that's why I pointed it out. One of the biggest names in behavioural psychology had 50+ research papers redacted because they falsified data. If the peer review process wasn't broken, if replication was happening, these people wouldn't have highly respected careers that span decades. It's a broken process.
If the babies change their reactions when you change which character does a celebratory bounce...then it seems unlikely that babies are passing moral judgements about bad guys and good guys. I'm not going to bother quoting the problems about fairness that the researchers admit exists.

I'd call it an emotional reaction to stimuli.

The study you refer to was rejected by the Journal Nature. The researchers of the original study said the NZ study changed its modelling and therefore this influenced the results. Studies have reversed the experiemnts show both the bouncer in both situations was judged as the bad guy if they denied others.

Other testing methods such different to the bouncer example for hindering/helping someone have also produced the same findings as the original study thus confirming it.

This goes back to what I was saying about repeated science and consistency with different fields of science and development. Like I said the support for the original findings is further supported across a number of areas. I would rather believe this repeated findings than an inconsistent one that is questioned on its methodology.

Social evaluation by preverbal infants
A study that looked at infants at 6 and 10 months of age showed that babies have some sense of morality. In a series of experiments, babies watched characters with googly eyes stuck on them either ‘help’ or ‘hinder’ other characters. So, we are, without a doubt, inherently empathetic creatures, but are we also innately altruistic?
Do Babies Have A Sense Of Morality?

Social evaluation by preverbal infants - Nature

The key to successful social interactions is the ability to accurately assess others' intentions, be they friend or foe. In humans, this ability is present very early on in life, as is shown here when preverbal infants evaluate individuals based on their actions towards others, preferring...

www.nature.com

3-month-olds show a negativity bias in their social evaluations
3-month-olds show a negativity bias in their social evaluations

Third-party punishment by preverbal infants
This result shows that humans may have a natural tendency to punish bad behavior, and it may actually be a trait that we are born with and while it may be fine-tuned as a infant grows into a child, the framework is already there.

Third-party punishment by preverbal infants - Nature Human Behaviour

Using a participatory cognitive paradigm based on gaze contingency, Kanakogi et al. show that eight-month-olds increased their selective gaze to antisocial others to punish them, suggesting that preverbal infants engage in third-party punishment.

www.nature.com

These same findings were found in a systematic review of a number of articles.
Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review
In general, this systematic review summarises the findings from various research studies and articles and provides a definite conclusion. First, moral sense is innate. Therefore, this systematic review collated the various conclusions to reach a reasonable consensus, that the moral sense is a natural ability that every human is born with, and this natural ability can be nurtured through social interactions and by environmental factors.
Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

This is consistent with biological/evolution findings

Our Brains Are Wired for Morality: Evolution, Development, and Neuroscience
“Building blocks” of morality, such as sensing fairness, experiencing empathy, and judging others’ harmful and helpful actions, can be observed in infancy, before a child’s social environment would be able to have a strong inuence. Specic parts of the human brain are involved in moral reasoning – both the kind that happens very quickly and the kind that is thought out. Our Brains are Wired for Morality: Evolution, Development, and Neuroscience.

The minds of humans are considered to be biologically prepared as children from an early age show moral evaluations and prosocial behaviours. An innate moral core exists in preverbal infants and children, which structures sophisticated and flexible moral behaviours and assessments, particularly the ability to identify and evaluate others based on their prosocial or antisocial acts within the first year of their life
Origin and Development of Moral Sense: A Systematic Review

Also within Neuroscience

Hardwired Behavior
What Neuroscience Reveals about Morality Neuroscience research over the past 20 or more years on brain function as it affects moral decisions. We are discovering that the physical features of the brain play the major role in shaping our thoughts and emotions, including the way we deal with 'moral' issues. Hardwired Behavior | Ethics