Super responses Danhalen!
Danhalen said:
I am not suggesting that each man uses his own axiom. I am suggesting that each man agrees to a common axiom. That axiom, in the case of morality, is to encourage the flourishment of mankind. As ]Fa||eN[ has suggested, we may have come to this understanding through the hindsight of mankind's past errors. I would hope that you agree that the purpose of morality is to ensure the flourishment of mankind. Since the axiom is more of a social contract, rather than an individual enforcement, it is by no means an arbitrary beginning point.
I do in fact agree that one of the primary purposes of morality is to encourage the flourishment of mankind. In my mind this necessitates 3 aspects of morality.
1. We must all agree on that common moral goal, the flourishment of mankind.
2. Individually we have a moral obligation. So there isn't really a sense that I can do whatever I want to do, otherwise I end up preventing others and myself from pursuing that common goal. Of course there are still freedoms within that common goal. There's a lot of room to be unique and so forth.
3. The most obvious - we have moral obligations to each other.
I don't want to get caught up in a semantics game, but you're saying that there's sort of a relative or subjective law, but it's based upon an objective moral axiom, right?
I won't spend any time arguing this, but without a God, even if we both agree that the flourishment of mankind is a good thing, being a good thing does not carry the implication that we "ought" to do it in the same sense that if God sets the moral law it necessitates an "ought".
Danhalen said:
The axiom I am basing my morality on does not change, nor does it have to change. The flourishment of mankind is what has kept us on this planet. Without it, we would have perished long ago. If I were to change the axiom (ever), I think we may have a problem surviving as a species.
Good. Because when I speak of objective morality, I'm speaking more of the moral axioms rather than the specific situation. I agree with your statements that in most situations we ought not to kill each other, but in certain circumstances, it is the right thing to do.
And I think when you say relative or subjective morality, it appears like you're speaking about the moral laws which do depend on the situation, but you still hold that the axiom is objective.
I think we're basically on the same page. In fact my belief is that by and large almost everyone has the same idea of morality.
Danhalen said:
Rather than go into another "does God change" debate (remember how dragged out the last one got?), let me simply state that morality is still the arbitrary decision of God. We follow the rules that God put forth because God said so. Sounds pretty arbitrary to me.
I'm not wanting to take the time to try and refute it here and now. I just want to say this about the word "arbitrary". Here are 2 different definitions from dictionary.com:
- Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle
- Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference
What makes me uneasy is that I'm fine with saying yes God's decision would be his individual judgement or preference. What I don't like is the definition that his decision is not determined by his reason and/or principle. It seems necessarily determined by his reason or principle. The reason (I think) the 2nd definition is considered arbitrary is because it's based upon human judgement and preference, which often a decision on chance, whim, or impulse.
But again... not meaning to try to refute it hear, just throwing a quick few sentences. This doesn't seem to be the main point, so I don't mind ignoring it from here on out for this thread.
Danhalen said:
It is not an absolute standard. It never has been. The result of the action is what we judge. If the end result is the flourishment of mankind, we can say that the action was moral. Since we take things in the context of which they happen, there isn't really an objective standard by which we can judge an action until we see the end result. It is only in hindsight that we can call an action moral.
Do you agree with what I wrote up above? If the moral axiom does not change, then it is an absolute or objective standard? The moral laws based upon the moral axiom may change depending on the situation though. So the moral laws aren't categorical imperatives like Kant suggested.
I'm not sure I agree to the only in hindsight idea. It would seem to me that if the moral axiom does not change, then we ought to be able to measure potential actions up against that standard before we do them. I suspect you agree in that if I'm going to decide what to do, I am still supposed to evaluate my potential actions by that moral axiom (using every bit of reason as I can), but you would add the caveat that we won't know for sure if I chose correctly until we see the effects of what I did. Is that fair and accurate?
One thing that seems shaky to me is the fact that I believe sometimes people do moral things and bad stuff still happens. Or sometimes they simply intended no harm, but moral stuff happened anyway. Let me cut the abstract and get to a simple example. One day in a soccer game someone intended to try and harm me. He tried to foul me hard, but I saw it coming and luckily moved out of the way. No physical harm was actually done, oddly I wasn't really upset about it, but I do believe his action was immoral. Now another day in practice a guy I had met for the first time and I were playing against each other and he was legitimately going for the ball. I was a bit quicker than him, but the end result was he clocked my ankle pretty good. He clearly did quite a bit more physical harm to me than the other guy. He was real apologetic though and really intended me no harm. So I don't think his action was in the slightest bit immoral even though it did me more harm than the guy who wanted to hurt me but didn't.
Danhalen said:
So you are saying that we can not judge the end result of an action objectively? I beg to differ. Let's just say that I kill a man. Objectively speaking, we know that if I kill a man it is wrong. Now let's say that I killed this man because he was about to kill twenty innocent people with a machine gun. We can now say that I was moral in killing that man. Objectively, I did what was best.
No... I was saying there at least must be an objective standard for there to be any judging at all. You seem to agree I think.
Danhalen said:
I am saying (assuming God is the author of morality), at one point there was no moral standard, then God decided that there would be. That's pretty arbitrary.
Hmm... I think it would be arbitrary if he once said X and then changed his mind to be NOT X. But if his character would say X if humans existed, then he creates humans, and thus he proclaims X, then he is very consistent and I don't see it as being arbitrary for reasons stated above.
But along that logic... if you are going to do an action and you don't claim it to be moral or immoral yet, you do the action, then look back and claim it one way or the other, then that too would almost appear to be arbitrary. Aha, but if you use the objective standard you mentioned, then we can say no, the moral standard has always existed, it hasn't been made up, it is objective. In that case the moral standard is not arbitrary.
Danhalen said:
I don't think we need to assume that God does change His moral standard to demonstrate any of this. You demonstrated quite clearly, in the other thread, your application of Occam's razor. I think it fits.
My apologies - I didn't remember if I had mentioned that to you or to someone else.
Danhalen said:
If my neighbors are planning on killing me, I am (morally) justified in killing them in self defense. Am I wrong with that assumption?
Yes, I quite agree with that. Well, we both would probably add in the caveat that it's best to try to see if there are less extreme measures to try first, but in the end, if someone insists on being a terrorist, it is just to kill them. I think that's very consistent with christianity, as examplified in the OT as many people point out.
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