Thanks for your post. Here are my comments and observations.
That is roughly true for my worldview as well. However, I wouldn't quite say that there is an objective
moral good, but rather an objective
good that sets a natural standard for judging all means to this good, such as moral virtues and values. And so there is no need for a moral lawgiver, just a discovered understanding of cause and effect.[/quote]
So thinking in lines of like the Forms for which Plato thought of in terms of Beauty, Truth, Goodness etc?
Where do we get the good from? Where does that objectivity come from? Where is the first cause from the good?
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Let me illustrate this with an example. The practice of medicine properly aims at the health of the patient. Medicine is not arbitrary -- you could easily kill or injure your patient if you misidentify either the problem or the remedy. All medical procedures are discoveries about what works well (cause and effect) at achieving the natural standard of biological health. This standard provides a means to judge all medical procedures for their ability to achieve a good result.[/quote]
But is morality the same way? How do we create a consistent ethic of life like this if we hold to our experiences as being the moral exemplar?
I feel that points of references are good for holding moral values however and that they are tested in our experience I don't think that our experience can have the final say. I feel that would lead to a sort of pragmatism that could lead to the gas chambers of the Nazi's.
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So too is it with moral virtues and values, which properly aim at the health of the moral agent. While different understandings from individual to individual, and culture to culture, of virtues and values are possible and likely, nevertheless there is a reality-oriented standard by which such understandings may be judged for their goodness. Morality is not a purely subjective or culturally-relative matter for my worldview.[/quote]
What unites the virtues? What is the essence that is bringing together this unity?
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Note that the standard of human well-being also exists in spite of human choices and beliefs.
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Yes, I would agree with this. I think that would point to an overall moral law.
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I personally think about morality very differently than the God/self distinction you draw here. I'm curious what you mean by the word "self", because it is probably very different from my understanding. For me, the "self" mainly refers to the capacity we as human beings have to reason and choose, and does not refer to childish desires.[/quote]
Yeah, self is one of those words with a broad semantic range. I use self to refer to individual. Not so much self as the ability to reason but self as the individuality of the person.
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So, for me, the "self" is not a dirty word, and is actually something good and to be nourished and perfected through wisdom and virtue.[/quote]
There is something to nourishing self and taking care of self but most times we chose self over others. We think of our own good over the well being of others when it comes down to it.
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I'll just note here that I'm not a utilitarian. I favor virtue ethics.
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I actually am too in favor of virtue based Ethics. I believe that situational ethics don't make sense. It is the virtues that flow from God to the person created in the image of God and therefore, we live them out through knowing and understanding him better. Unfortunately there are many who call themselves a Christian and don't do this. But that is precisely the point of why we believe we need a savior because we can't do it on our own because we are broken and we do need to be restored.
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I wish I could believe this. While we do have natural moral capacities, such as empathy and conscience, I don't think we are born with a complete implicit moral understanding.[/quote]
You don't believe that we inherently have a capacity for love, doing good and right and wrong? I am not suggesting that is complete but I just don't see how these are truly learned behaviors. Even children who grow up in terrible environments still long for love and affection. I still believe that they long to do good and love.
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I think that evolution does quite well with its studies into biological altruism, and keep in mind that the human capacity to
generalize, which comes from our mental ability to abstract, can explain how we can extend this natural behavior beyond direct kin. If you conceive of non-kin, and perhaps the entirety of humanity, as your "brothers and sisters", then you may extend your biological altruism quite far.
I don't wish to get into a big discussion on evolutionary science since I think that will lead us too far astray. Just one thing, though... evolution is based on reproduction and the transmission of genes, not on survival as such. There is nothing in evolution to prevent
social species.
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I won't engage this further not because I agree with you on the biological altruism but because you are correct that this will lead to far from where we are going.
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Very few Christians here say that. I'm happy that you do. I hear too often that human beings are inherently sinful and evil.
This is not your problem, of course, but I'd say that the idea that human beings are evil by nature is not a fringe view, but a mainstream view, at least in America.[/quote]
Yes that is the majority Christian belief, al la, Augustine in the Pelegian controversy but there was more than just the binary view of Augustine vs. Pelagius. I took John Cassians view that affirmed humanity being made in the image of God yet spoke of sin as a sickness. Sin (doing wrong, missing the mark) is a violation of our being and is not a part of our nature.
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Why do many people
want death, destruction, or violence?[/quote]
To advance their cause, because they think they are right and everyone else is wrong. Not to be extremely controvesial but why do people fly planes into towers, why did people drive others into gas chambers, why is their genocide in Sudan right now, where I am living? Because people think they are right, and they make someone else the other and when you make someone less than human you can do whatever you want to them. It is the worst case senario of moral pragmatism.
eudaimonia,
Mark