Atheism and Ad Absurdum

stevil

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I agree with you on resources being limited and the need for competition. In some sense, competition makes us all better. However, there is a fine line. It's one thing to compete fairly and it's another to kill your competition.
But, you'd have to define "fairly".
Throughout history, people have been competing for resources (and power).
As the world has become global, we have altered our definition of "us" vs "them".
At one stage it was fine to raid our neighboring villages, and then the villages bound together and they instead raided their neighboring districts, but then they bound together and then they raided neighboring countries, but then they bound together and they instead raided far off countries, but then humanity bound together, at least in part.
Except for those countries who still find themselves on the outter, like Russia and China who still compete ferociously to survive in this global place.
Except for USA who have now defined "us" as USA Republican supporters loyal to Trump and "them" as everyone else, including their traditional allies (UK, Canada, Germany, etc), democratic party supporters of USA, the free media, Republicans who aren't 100% loyal to Trump.
 
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So your argument is that Billy is correct because there are more people like him than Bob?

Society's have trouble forming around Bob's ideas, so Bob is at an inherent disadvantage to groups that will cooperate with one another in a way in which he is incapable.

Billy is likely to convince others that murder is wrong and have good reasons why. His society is likely to succeed, where one where murder is considered correct is not.

Billy is right with regard to the value put on society and it's effect on attaining resources, safety and long term success, and it is hard to put it together the other way because it is objectively easier to do these things with his outlook and value system.
 
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Again, it's a fact that most humans value life, that doesn't mean it is a fact that life is valuable.

Value in this sense is a verb, it is something you do. Valuing your life is done via action not abstraction.

There is no other way for something to be valuable, it only happens when we act upon what we value.

When I say someone values their life or the lives of others, what I mean is that they will take extensive action in order to preserve it. When I say someone values something more than their life it means they are prepared to die to preserve that thing they value.
 
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stevil

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Value in this sense is a verb, it is something you do. Valuing your life is done via action not abstraction.

There is no other way for something to be valuable, it only happens when we act upon what we value.

When I say someone values their life or the lives of others, what I mean is that they will take extensive action in order to preserve it. When I say someone values something more than their life it means they are prepared to die to preserve that thing they value.
Interesting definition.
Going by that, I value my life and that of my family.
Then I value the life of my friends.
I value the life of strangers if I am in the immediate vicinity and can take action to help them in their urgent need.
Mostly I don't value the life of people not in my immediate vicinity, because I am not taking action to travel to places to help people
Mostly I don't value the life of the homeless because I am not taking action to save them.
Mostly I don't value the life of people in other countries because I am not taking action to save them.

However, I do support laws against murder in my country(but I don't need to take action on this as no political party has campaigned that murder should be allowed). I do however "theoretically" support the police taking action against people who commit or attempt murder in my society. They commit actions on my behalf via proxy.
 
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Interesting definition.
Going by that, I value my life and that of my family.
Then I value the life of my friends.
I value the life of strangers if I am in the immediate vicinity and can take action to help them in their urgent need.
Mostly I don't value the life of people not in my immediate vicinity, because I am not taking action to travel to places to help people
Mostly I don't value the life of the homeless because I am not taking action to save them.
Mostly I don't value the life of people in other countries because I am not taking action to save them.

However, I do support laws against murder in my country(but I don't need to take action on this as no political party has campaigned that murder should be allowed). I do however "theoretically" support the police taking action against people who commit or attempt murder in my society. They commit actions on my behalf via proxy.

How you feel is quite usual. It's hard to take the time to properly value people you don't know or interact with.

This is why we create things like the justice system to try to enforce our values throughout society where we don't really have the time to act ourselves. That social order is an extended good thing that we participate in only by providing funds and political support.

That's part of how society operates though, small contributions from a lot of people can make a lot of difference.
 
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stevil

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How you feel is quite usual. It's hard to take the time to properly value people you don't know or interact with.

This is why we create things like the justice system to try to enforce our values throughout society where we don't really have the time to act ourselves. That social order is an extended good thing that we participate in only by providing funds and political support.

That's part of how society operates though, small contributions from a lot of people can make a lot of difference.
Well, I was basing my previous post upon your premise. The definition of "value" that you presented.

But actually I tell myself that I do value most people even though I don't appreciably act upon that.
Some people I obviously value more than others e.g. my family and myself.

I don't really accept that government is in place to support "good".
There are many things which might be considered "bad" that I don't want the government to stop people from doing. For example, cheating on your spouse or partner. I don't want this to be made illegal.
I think the purpose of government is to support a safe, stable and thriving society. For example, we can't have a safe, stable or thriving society if we are allowed to go around killing, harming each other or stealing each others stuff.

But the topic of this thread, despite the poor title, is about how we go about defining and proving something to be wrong rather than how we go about defining laws governing society.
 
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I don't really accept that government is in place to support "good".
There are many things which might be considered "bad" that I don't want the government to stop people from doing. For example, cheating on your spouse or partner. I don't want this to be made illegal.

I think the purpose of government is to support a safe, stable and thriving society. For example, we can't have a safe, stable or thriving society if we are allowed to go around killing, harming each other or stealing each others stuff.

What I was saying was that these things are things we value and we do so (somewhat minimally) by forming society's and the only way we really act toward that is supporting a government that performs these basic tasks.

How far that should go and how we should go about it is definitely something that gets discussed in a more political discussion but most people are in a fair amount of agreement on the basics.

But the topic of this thread, despite the poor title, is about how we go about defining and proving something to be wrong rather than how we go about defining laws governing society.

I find that concepts things like "right" "wrong" "good" "value" ect are more problematic to demonstrate when we only talk about them in the abstract.

When we deal with how these concepts actually operate in the real world it makes everything a little easier to chew on.

So, my concept of value is based upon how I think it actually operates in the real world between real people. I don't have to demonstrate that people have value to people, I can simply observe it in action.

How do people act?
 
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Moral Orel

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OK, help me out. When you deny that "life is in fact valuable"... what precisely are you denying?

My understanding is ideas like "valuable" require a subject. It makes zero sense to just assert (or deny) "valuable" without reference to a subject. Who's your subject here?
That's half of it right there. A subject is required to value anything, nothing has intrinsic value. Things have value because we deem them valuable, not because we recognize value.

The other half is that there is no correct thing for humans to assign value to, life included. If we as a society assign value to life it will certainly motivate us to perpetuate it, but that doesn't mean it's the correct thing to do, because it isn't a matter of being correct or incorrect.
 
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Moral Orel

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Society's have trouble forming around Bob's ideas, so Bob is at an inherent disadvantage to groups that will cooperate with one another in a way in which he is incapable.

Billy is likely to convince others that murder is wrong and have good reasons why. His society is likely to succeed, where one where murder is considered correct is not.

Billy is right with regard to the value put on society and it's effect on attaining resources, safety and long term success, and it is hard to put it together the other way because it is objectively easier to do these things with his outlook and value system.
But Billy and the majority of society aren't "correct" to value life, people just enjoy living. I'm not correct that chocolate ice cream is delicious, I just enjoy eating it. Billy made the correct choice to perpetuate life and society, but is perpetuating life and society the correct thing to do? I chose to go to work today to earn the money I need to purchase chocolate ice cream to eat, but is buying and eating chocolate ice cream the correct thing to do?

We can fabricate a sort of faux-objectivity by making completely factual and true statements such as, "It's an objective fact that if you want X you should do Y". But it can't be demonstrated as an objective fact that X is what you should want, so it's just an illusion.
 
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durangodawood

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...We can fabricate a sort of faux-objectivity by making completely factual and true statements such as, "It's an objective fact that if you want X you should do Y". But it can't be demonstrated as an objective fact that X is what you should want, so it's just an illusion.
But its an objective fact that you do want to do X. Its an objective fact that humans are the kind of animals that do prefer X. Add that to your "faux objective" statements, and you have an actual objectively based moral system.

When you reject the reality of the labels "correct" and "incorrect" it sounds like youre rejecting an absolute-revealed (God based) morality rather than rejecting an objective (real world conditions) based morality.
 
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Moral Orel

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But its an objective fact that you do want to do X.
Sure, I want to do X, but other humans want to do P, Q, R, and S, and they're all conflicting with each other.
Its an objective fact that humans are the kind of animals that do prefer X.
No. It might be an objective fact that there are more humans who prefer X over Z, but that isn't what your statement means.
When you reject the reality of the labels "correct" and "incorrect" it sounds like youre rejecting an absolute-revealed (God based) morality rather than rejecting an objective (real world conditions) based morality.
If it isn't a matter of correct vs. incorrect then it isn't an objective morality. You're just trying to redefine well established terms.
 
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durangodawood

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....If it isn't a matter of correct vs. incorrect then it isn't an objective morality. You're just trying to redefine well established terms.
My claim has always been that the enduring parts of human morality are based on the objective facts about what kind of animals we are and the world we live it. That sure sounds like "objective morality" to me. But if it isnt, I'm fine using another label.
 
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But Billy and the majority of society aren't "correct" to value life, people just enjoy living. I'm not correct that chocolate ice cream is delicious, I just enjoy eating it. Billy made the correct choice to perpetuate life and society, but is perpetuating life and society the correct thing to do? I chose to go to work today to earn the money I need to purchase chocolate ice cream to eat, but is buying and eating chocolate ice cream the correct thing to do?

We can fabricate a sort of faux-objectivity by making completely factual and true statements such as, "It's an objective fact that if you want X you should do Y". But it can't be demonstrated as an objective fact that X is what you should want, so it's just an illusion.

Correct or should don't mean anything outside of the context of the system they exist in.

It works more like if you want x then y is the correct way to persue it. That is the objective part of morality. That every action based on a belief has undeniable objective consequences and social consequences.

Billy can appeal to those who disagree on killing by pointing to the consequences be they objectively or intersubjectively enforced.
 
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But its an objective fact that you do want to do X. Its an objective fact that humans are the kind of animals that do prefer X. Add that to your "faux objective" statements, and you have an actual objectively based moral.

It might be hard to understand that morality can be based upon objective facts about what humans are and how they interact without establishing rules that trancend the human experience in any way.
 
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Moral Orel

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Its as if people were trying to define a universal/absolute sense of "up" and "down".
That's what objective morality is. A universal sense of right and wrong. Ken and I and others have been trying to explain how silly that is this whole time, while you've been attempting to prove that there is some at least quasi-objective morality.

Correct or should don't mean anything outside of the context of the system they exist in.
Sometimes "correct" isn't apt at all. Am I correct that chocolate is the most delicious ice cream? Correct has nothing to do with that.

If morality was objective, you wouldn't need the qualifier "If you want to do X" to make "you should do Y" correct. That's why it's faux-objectivity.
 
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durangodawood

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That's what objective morality is. A universal sense of right and wrong. Ken and I and others have been trying to explain how silly that is this whole time, while you've been attempting to prove that there is some at least quasi-objective morality.
I've always stated my claim as: the enduring parts of human morality are based on the objective facts about what kind of animals we are and the world we live in.

It would make much more sense to call that "objective morality" rather than some universal absolute that no one can demonstrate. But I'm not going to insist everybody redefine their terms, even if it would make total sense.
 
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Moral Orel

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I've always stated my claim as: the enduring parts of human morality are based on the objective facts about what kind of animals we are and the world we live in.
But we can state objective facts like you have about absolutely anything, so they don't have any significance. It's an objective fact that I love chocolate ice cream. That fact doesn't elevate my opinion above being an opinion. There are objective facts about everything, even totally subjective things. So what?

It would make much more sense to call that "objective morality" rather than some universal absolute that no one can demonstrate. But I'm not going to insist everybody redefine their terms, even if it would make total sense.
Some folks think they can demonstrate it and believe that's what morality is. They can't really do it, of course. It always ends up turning into a giant appeal to emotion fallacy, but it isn't as though no one believes it's a real thing.
 
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durangodawood

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But we can state objective facts like you have about absolutely anything, so they don't have any significance. It's an objective fact that I love chocolate ice cream. That fact doesn't elevate my opinion above being an opinion. There are objective facts about everything, even totally subjective things. So what?...
Yes you can do that. But youre starting to drain the word "objective" of any functional significance at all.

I'm always a bit suspect of arguments that do that: kill a perfectly good word to make a point.
 
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durangodawood

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Also, what does universal morality even mean?

-our moral rules apply to humans on Mars as well as here?
-they apply to all creatures and maybe plants?
-theyre utter abstracts, like math, that dont need any objects for their validity?
 
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