From Morality to God

FireDragon76 said:

You're just saying that things are normative because somebody wills them to be so. You're suggesting there's one being who wills things to be so apart from the nature of things themselves. And I've never seen a single case of that actually happening in the real world. In the real world, people are always acting within a system in which they are interdependent with the rest of the system.

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It's almost as if the OP's never heard of the Euthyphro dilemma or is trying to sidestep it by making the good equivalent to God, which is a naturalistic fallacy, seeing as God is defined generally as a mind and good is defined as a quality of actions, so it's a category error to conflate them

muichimotsu said:

It's almost as if the OP's never heard of the Euthyphro dilemma or is trying to sidestep it by making the good equivalent to God, which is a naturalistic fallacy, seeing as God is defined generally as a mind and good is defined as a quality of actions, so it's a category error to conflate them

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He's a Calvinist and I'm trying to point out the flaw that Calvinism basically says we don't need to study the nature of things, only "God's will".

I'm not arguing against God per se in a philosophical sense. I have been exploring Whiteheadian conceptualizations of God and metaphysics myself. However, I do think it's problematic to try to ground morality within divine command, and this is, as you point out, just a soft way of trying to get around the Euthyphro dilema.

Tree of Life said:

@FireDragon76 You should try to engage with some of the premises in the OP.

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I did. I don't buy it. It's the same tired arguments we've heard before. Studying the nature of things as they are is sufficient to derive moral principles.

FireDragon76 said:

He's a Calvinist and I'm trying to point out the flaw that Calvinism basically says we don't need to study the nature of things, only "God's will".

I'm not arguing against God per se in a philosophical sense. I have been exploring Whiteheadian conceptualizations of God and metaphysics myself. However, I do think it's problematic to try to ground morality within divine command, and this is, as you point out, just a soft way of trying to get around the Euthyphro dilema.

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Ground of being is about the best way to do so, I'd imagine (not sure if Whitehead does that, it's like trying to familiarize yourself with the various Islamic theologies, which I looked into briefly, one an interesting eclectic type called Alawism, I believe, that has a triad of sorts)

If God's will is good, then yeah, you either admit that God is willing something outside itself and thus it's still independent of God or you conflate it and commit what I'm pretty sure is a category error

Tree of Life said:

*chuckle* See my comments in this thread (see below) on the Euthyphro dilemma if you’re interested.

Arguments Against God

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Are you going to address my point by point criticism? If you wanted that, you got it, it's kind of my thing when I'm motivated to do so and I gave it to you in spades.

muichimotsu said:

Ground of being is about the best way to do so, I'd imagine (not sure if Whitehead does that, it's like trying to familiarize yourself with the various Islamic theologies, which I looked into briefly, one an interesting eclectic type called Alawism, I believe, that has a triad of sorts)

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Yes, that's more or less correct as far as Whitehead goes.

Tree of Life said:

I found your response a bit confusing and I don’t think you really engaged with the substance of my points. I probably will not respond to it.

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Maybe address how you think I didn't engage with the substance: if you're just doing presuppositionalism, then yeah, there's not much to be gained, because you've tautologically assumed the truth of the claims by saying that the opposite is impossible instead of honestly considering that your definitions are not set in stone, nor are they the only applicable meanings to the terms in the discussion, even if you're not using the often confused subjective and objective

muichimotsu said:

It's almost as if the OP's never heard of the Euthyphro dilemma or is trying to sidestep it by making the good equivalent to God, which is a naturalistic fallacy, seeing as God is defined generally as a mind and good is defined as a quality of actions, so it's a category error to conflate them

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1. God is a mind
2. Good is a quality of actions
3. A mind is not a quality
4. Therefore God is not good

The first problem with this is that it fails to acknowledge that "good" is predicated of substances which produce good effects, or agents which produce good actions. The argumentation would lead to the absurd conclusion that humans too cannot be good.

The second, deeper problem, is that goodness is predicated of God in a preeminent, transcendent way insofar as God is said to be the source and font of all goodness.

FireDragon76 said:

Yes, that's more or less correct as far as Whitehead goes.

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Just took a skim over the Wikipedia article, it's certainly an interesting notion, similar in some respects, I think, to what I understand about open theism as a concept in theological thought

zippy2006 said:

1. God is a mind
2. Good is a quality of actions
3. A mind is not a quality
4. Therefore God is not good

The first problem with this is that it fails to acknowledge that "good" is predicated of substances which produce good effects, or agents which produce good actions. The argumentation would lead to the absurd conclusion that humans too cannot be good.

The second, deeper problem, is that goodness is predicated of God in a preeminent, transcendent way insofar as God is said to be the source and font of all goodness.

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I didn't say God wasn't good or could not be good, you're strawmanning my argument: God cannot be goodness itself, even if God happens to conform to goodness in its behavior, the fact would still remain that goodness cannot be a property of a mind, only a quality of actions

Good as resulting from minds making choices is incidental and a leap in logic to suggest that good should be regarded through reification as some concrete property rather than an abstract immaterial thing that is used to describe actions.

I prefer not to use evil or good to describe people, though I'll slip up on occasion out of convention. Humans are naturally to be regarded simply as fallible and capable of improvement, but not good or evil, because good will be relative to the context of actions, much like evil, and that's not even considering moral ontology where evil is the privation of good (at least a common model I find compelling). Humans can do good things, humans themselves cannot be good because it's a category error, I'd argue.

And still this plays into reifying good, which is ignotum per ignotius, solving the mystery about goodness' nature by positing something further that isn't to be questioned, but accepted because it "makes sense" in some internally consistent theological context that already presumes God as a valid concept

muichimotsu said:

Just took a skim over the Wikipedia article, it's certainly an interesting notion, similar in some respects, I think, to what I understand about open theism as a concept in theological thought

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Whitehead was trying to make sense of the religious impulse in the context of post-Einstein science with indeterminacy (unlike Newton, which tended to push many towards Deism), so the impetus is a bit different from Open Theism, which has alot to do with the basic Arminian impulse of modern American society steeped in consumerism.

FireDragon76 said:

Whitehead was trying to make sense of the religious impulse in the context of post-Einstein science with indeterminacy (unlike Newton, which tended to push many towards Deism), so the impetus is a bit different from Open Theism, which has alot to do with the basic Arminian impulse of modern American society steeped in consumerism.

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It's also criticized especially because of how God is understood in a way that many would suggest makes God's omnipotence confusing or such. Just something I recalled

I find it curious that the Euthyphro was written by Plato. I wonder if it could be taken as an argument against polytheism in favor of a kind of platonic monotheism. Certainly the modern atheist appropriation of the argument is least effective against platonic notions of the Good and God, and is usually employed against Voluntaristic conceptions. I haven't investigated the issue, but this is quite possible.

muichimotsu said:

I didn't say God wasn't good or could not be good, you're strawmanning my argument: God cannot be goodness itself, even if God happens to conform to goodness in its behavior, the fact would still remain that goodness cannot be a property of a mind, only a quality of actions

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Okay, well thanks for the clarification. My second objection still applies.

I prefer not to use evil or good to describe people, though I'll slip up on occasion out of convention. Humans are naturally to be regarded simply as fallible and capable of improvement, but not good or evil, because good will be relative to the context of actions, much like evil, and that's not even considering moral ontology where evil is the privation of good (at least a common model I find compelling). Humans can do good things, humans themselves cannot be good because it's a category error, I'd argue.

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I think good and evil can be used to describe people insofar as they are habituated towards good or evil acts, towards virtue or vice. The necessary caveat is merely that no one is irreversibly good or evil.

And still this plays into reifying good, which is ignotum per ignotius, solving the mystery about goodness' nature by positing something further that isn't to be questioned, but accepted because it "makes sense" in some internally consistent theological context that already presumes God as a valid concept

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It is my contention that platonic participation metaphysics is based more in experience than a desire for systematic logical consistency.

I find it curious that the Euthyphro was written by Plato. I wonder if it could be taken as an argument against polytheism in favor of a kind of platonic monotheism. Certainly the modern atheist appropriation of the argument is least effective against platonic notions of the Good and God, and is usually employed against Voluntaristic conceptions. I haven't investigated the issue, but this is quite possible.

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That's a convenient interpretation if you're already biased to assuming God exists and engaging in postdiction.

With an entity that isn't personal, you further make it difficult to even justify its existence in any way beyond the abstract, because it might as well not exist, since the state of things as we see them does not absolutely lend itself to concluding it was created

Okay, well thanks for the clarification. My second objection still applies.

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Your second objection is circular in that it already assumes God exists in the first place and thus, would of course assume any rationalizing tactic to get around objections like the Euthyphro dilemma, among several others that exist

I think good and evil can be used to describe people insofar as they are habituated towards good or evil acts, towards virtue or vice. The necessary caveat is merely that no one is irreversibly good or evil.

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You still have the problem of reification, but even if that's not happening, the problem is about applying that property to people who are in flux and can do both, thus it becomes near contradictory, if not paradoxical in a contradictory or incoherent fashion that we can simultaneously be good and evil. If anything, there's a better qualification in terms that could be used, but it still creates an issue that is better solved by focusing on good and evil as regarding actions rather than the agents that commit them and can change those habits, so it isn't even provisional, it's entirely subject to change at any given time because of any kind of outside influence or argument.

It is my contention that platonic participation metaphysics is based more in experience than a desire for systematic logical consistency.

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So it doesn't care about truth, only feeling like you're right? I see this far too often with any kind of rationalization about the supernatural through philosophical means: it doesn't make it more right, it just has the appearance by rhetoric. And pure experience makes the whole situation antithetical to any kind of logic rather than being able to cooperate in some way, because it just becomes your experience versus someone else's and both are seen as valid in a postmodern fashion

Tree of Life said:

I will wait for you to clarify your positions.

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What have I said in this thread that needs clarifying?

Tree of Life said:

Why should one norm defeat the other? Perhaps we should have abandoned human compassion.

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I never said "should".

Tree of Life said:

@Moral Orel I am claiming that when you make moral claims, you are assuming moral prescriptions.

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When people make moral claims they are making moral prescriptions, not assuming them.

Tree of Life said:

I do think that's one way to avoid the conclusion of my argument, but I don't believe that anyone actually believes that there are no moral prescriptions. People may claim that they do, but no one lives this way.

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You callin' me a liar? Thems fighting' words!

What is it that you think I do that means I'm not "living that way"?

zippy2006 said:

Oh, that. That was intended as an example to differentiate descriptive from prescriptive norms. I believe it has nothing to do with the OP. I introduced it to try to show you why a focus on descriptive norms has nothing to do with the OP. Admittedly I haven't proved that to you.

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All norms are descriptive. Are some of them also prescriptive? That's what y'all are trying to argue.

zippy2006 said:

If I were your logic teacher I would implore you to try to attack the validity of the original post before attacking its soundness. Soundness is something that should only be addressed if one believes the argumentation is bullet proof. "Morality doesn't exist," or "Prescriptive norms don't exist" is a blanket criticism of the entirety of moral philosophy, not a specific criticism of a particular moral argument. Such blanket criticisms rarely lead to constructive exchange. Yeah yeah, I know: I'm not your logic teacher. Your loss.

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I dunno where you got that from. I'm attacking premise one.