Euthyphro's Dilemma (for atheists)

[Ana the Ist]

You haven't given your position

I gave a moral behavior and preference with opposite values. I also gave an example of a behavior with negative preference over another behavior with a negative preference (slave or die, remember?) and asked for a moral position and you gave a non-optional behavior.

I can't even remotely describe whatever your or Orel's "uncontroversial common sense everyone knows" theory is at this point. It appears to have something to do with behavior and nothing to do with preference or morality.

Can you state it simply?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Let's try this....

What does the theory explain?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Let's try this....@zippy2006

Pretend Orel and I are researchers at college doing psychological surveys. We interview many people on many questions and one subject, because it's completely confidential, answers the following question like this...

Me and Orel- "What's your sexual preference?"

Subject- "I like rape"

Since it's unlikely anyone would be unaware of the stigma around rape we are going to assume this is a truthful answer because of the confidentiality.

What does the theory tell us about him? Or do we need to know the moral? If we need to know the moral....let's assume he says "I think rape is morally bad".

What does the theory explain?

 

[Moral Orel]

Nope.

I pointed out he wasn't referring to the behavior in my argument.

He was referring to my tolerance for trash.

He's made the exact same appeal at least twice since then. It's not a red herring, I'm not teaching you logical fallacies or grammar. I was dead on the nose, he proved it, I can quote him if you're struggling with the reading.

And I'm definitely reevaluating your capacity for rational thinking.

Yeah, red herring. See how you stopped mentioning verb tenses because they're irrelevant? Now you're trying to change the subject to hide your embarrassment. I'll address your issues with ambiguity as soon as you acknowledge your red herring.

 

[Chriliman]

Sorry....that's a different preference.

You're saying that I prefer the trash being taken out like you've never seen the house of some slob who doesn't.

I don't know why you believe that you can safely assume such things based on my statement alone.

Would it be simpler if I was the only possible person in the equation?

I'm alone in the home, i hate taking out the trash, and prefer to not do it.

I think taking out the trash is morally good.

Is that easier? Probably not, right?

Okay, that does help me understand your position better. So in the case of the slob who doesn't care if the trash piles up, they may still think its good for others to take out the trash, but they themselves prefer not to or think it's not good for themselves for some reason. Is that more inline with your thinking?

So you could still say they prefer someone else take out the trash, unless we say they prefer the trash not be taken out because they like the stench or want to see how high they can pile it. Right?

 

[Ana the Ist]

This is you not understanding English.

Yeah, red herring. See how you stopped mentioning verb tenses because they're irrelevant? Now you're trying to change the subject to hide your embarrassment. I'll address your issues with ambiguity as soon as you acknowledge your red herring.

I don't have issues with ambiguity. I knew exactly what he was doing. I pointed it out.

Zippy-Then I have no preference that the trash be taken out.

Me- That's not about me taking out the trash, it's about my tolerance of trash.

You- blah blah verb tense doesn't change anything blah.

Zippy in his very next post....

• p1: "I really dislike smelly garbage sitting in my house."

He literally added a statement to my argument about tolerance for trash to *ahem* clarify it for me.

Not only were you wrong....but provably so. Verb tense was entirely relevant and zippy was suggesting exactly what I thought he was.

 

[Ana the Ist]

So you could still say they prefer someone else take out the trash

I'm pretty sure it was part of my original statement.

That's not a preference about the presence of trash. It's a preference of who does it upon a conditional.

That condition was described as "if it must be taken out".

So the conditional is need. Now "it must be taken out" is ambiguous because obviously that's not really the same for everyone. It's dependent upon circumstances as well as other possibilities. Perhaps a roommate decides to take it out. Perhaps one develops a staph infection and while bedridden at the hospital, has their home emptied.

I'm not trying to describe every scenario here. It's not like it matters if I even take it out....hating it the whole time.

They haven't even asserted any connection to morals and real behavior. So far, morals are just statements about possible behavior. It doesn't matter if the trash is taken out or not.

 

[Chriliman]

I'm pretty sure it was part of my original statement.

That's not a preference about the presence of trash. It's a preference of who does it upon a conditional.

That condition was described as "if it must be taken out".

So the conditional is need. Now "it must be taken out" is ambiguous because obviously that's not really the same for everyone. It's dependent upon circumstances as well as other possibilities. Perhaps a roommate decides to take it out. Perhaps one develops a staph infection and while bedridden at the hospital, has their home emptied.

I'm not trying to describe every scenario here. It's not like it matters if I even take it out....hating it the whole time.

They haven't even asserted any connection to morals and real behavior. So far, morals are just statements about possible behavior. It doesn't matter if the trash is taken out or not.

Yea, it really only matters(morally) if the trash situation begins to effect the slob negatively enough for them to need to do something about it in order to not be negatively effected. Either they get sick from it or law enforcement inflicts consequences for not taking it out or what not…

I think we’re in agreement here?

Just unclear where the disagreement is between you and Orel/Zippy

 

[Ana the Ist]

Yea, it really only matters(morally) if the trash situation begins to effect the slob negatively enough for them to need to do something about it in order to not be negatively effected.

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

That a moral only really matters when it affects you negatively?

 

[zippy2006]

Zippy in his very next post....

• p1: "I really dislike smelly garbage sitting in my house."

He literally added a statement to my argument about tolerance for trash to *ahem* clarify it for me.

Already addressed here:

I never said you claimed p1. You're not following. Your whole tangent with Orel was based on your claim that the preferences in our discussion must be a "statement of preference for a behavior." I explained why you are wrong and then gave p1 as an example of an "explicitly non-behavioral" preference.

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I can't even remotely describe whatever your or Orel's "uncontroversial common sense everyone knows" theory is at this point. It appears to have something to do with behavior and nothing to do with preference or morality.

Can you state it simply?

Already addressed here:

...Feel free to define Orel's theory according to option (2) in the poll, or according to A1 from <this post>...

 

[zippy2006]

Just unclear where the disagreement is between you and Orel/Zippy

The basic problem is that Ana continually asserts that Orel's position is wrong, and then when he is asked why it is wrong, he says that he doesn't even know what Orel's position is.

Obviously it makes no sense to believe that a position is wrong and to simultaneously not know what the position is. Of course Orel <explicitly stated> that he holds to poll option (2), and I gave an alternative formulation in A1 <here>.

 

[Moral Orel]

I don't have issues with ambiguity. I knew exactly what he was doing. I pointed it out.

Zippy-Then I have no preference that the trash be taken out.

Me- That's not about me taking out the trash, it's about my tolerance of trash.

You- blah blah verb tense doesn't change anything blah.

Zippy in his very next post....

• p1: "I really dislike smelly garbage sitting in my house."

He literally added a statement to my argument about tolerance for trash to *ahem* clarify it for me.

Not only were you wrong....but provably so. Verb tense was entirely relevant and zippy was suggesting exactly what I thought he was.

You think his incidental change in verb tense vindicates your red herring? No, no it doesn't. We can make statements about your preference for the presence of trash in other tenses:

You really dislike for there to be smelly garbage in your house.

Tense never had anything to do with it. Red herring.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Already addressed here:

As I already stated....

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If I didn't make the claim...why are you adding it to my statement?

Also Orel rejected the possibility that a preference can be of the non-behavioral sort.

If you missed it, I threw in an example of preferring vanilla....we agreed this was bad argumentation.

The survey and link you provide don't answer anything.

Are you stating that you can make up a preference for any moral, whether the relationship between the two coincide....or are inverse....or are completely different and not even related to the moral behavior, and/or not a real option?

Already addressed here:

I don't think he's still confident in it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You think his incidental change in verb tense vindicates your red herring?

Uhhh...it's not a red herring.

I pointed this out because you specifically didn't want me to formulate a statement with a non-behavioral preference. As an example, I mentioned preferring vanilla.

Are you going to flip flop on this now?

Might as well, you're out of running room.

You really dislike for there to be smelly garbage in your house.

Sure sure, in much the same way as I really like vanilla.

You're sure this kind of "biological cannot be changed" preference is on the board now?

Tense never had anything to do with it. Red herring.

Sure it did....I can quote you from earlier in the thread where you said these preferences were unusable in some strawman argument you thought I would propose.

Are they useable or not?

You're done either way.

 

[zippy2006]

If I didn't make the claim...why are you adding it to my statement?

Already addressed here:

I never said you claimed p1. You're not following. Your whole tangent with Orel was based on your claim that the preferences in our discussion must be a "statement of preference for a behavior." I explained why you are wrong and then gave p1 as an example of an "explicitly non-behavioral" preference.

With all of this in mind, in the present case we are free to make the preference explicitly non-behavioral:

• p1: "I really dislike smelly garbage sitting in my house."
• p2: "I hate taking out the trash and prefer when someone else does it" (Ana's quote, #362)
• m1: "I see taking out the trash as morally good behavior" (Ana's quote, #362)

As <everyone knows>, p1 can ground m1 even in the presence of p2. When Ana claims that p2 is somehow decisive in precluding grounding preferences such as p1, he is <clearly wrong>.

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I am tired of your interminable evasion. Until you answer the following question I am not going to add any new content to our dialogue:

Okay, let's keep it simple. What is your argument for why Orel's theory is incorrect? Feel free to define Orel's theory according to option (2) in the poll, or according to A1 from <this post>.

 

[Moral Orel]

Uhhh...it's not a red herring.

Uhhh.... Yeah it is. Changing verb tense doesn't change the subject or the object. We can use any combination of subject/object in any verb tense. Your complaint is that he talked about a different object for your preference. Well la dee da, that isn't because he changed verb tense.

I pointed this out because you specifically didn't want me to formulate a statement with a non-behavioral preference. As an example, I mentioned preferring vanilla.

No, you need to learn to read. You can make statements about your preferences for things that aren't behavior all you want. Those are going to be at least one premise in your argument for any moral good. That's the whole point.

Let's see you really demonstrate this garbage example. Give us the formal argument for why "Taking out the trash is good" that doesn't involve preferences.


P1 _____
P2 _____
...
C Taking out the trash is good.

It isn't just a personal feeling that it's good, so you must have concluded that it is good based on pure reason. Let's see it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Already addressed here:





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I am tired of your interminable evasion. Until you answer the following question I am not going to add any new content to our dialogue:

zippy....if you don't understand why I'm rejecting this argument outright then you didn't read the thread.

I was accused of a schtick.

I was accused of preparing a strawman, which Orel was not going to allow.

The strawman he imagined I would try had something to do with non-behavioral preferences. Like a taste for vanilla or dislike of the smell of trash.

I still can't tell what you think this grand theory is. It looks like it's stated simply as....

As long as I'm allowed to presuppose elements of the formation of a moral statement, and I'm not required to make preferences correlate to the moral behavior, nor am I restricted to preferring actual possibilities, I can imagine a preference that explains any moral statement lol.

Is that about it?

Like I said earlier....a theory with zero explanatory power?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Uhhh.... Yeah it is. Changing verb tense doesn't change the subject or the object. We can use any combination of subject/object in any verb tense. Your complaint is that he talked about a different object for your preference. Well la dee da, that isn't because he changed verb tense.

The object is the trash...the subject is ambiguous.

No, you need to learn to read.

You need to take your own advice.

You can make statements about your preferences for things that aren't behavior all you want.

Ok....I reworded your "theory" above. Just confirm that's your theory (not a trick, as far as I can tell, this is exactly what you mean) or explain the part that I've got wrong.

If it looks accurate, I'll gladly explain why that isn't a theory and then I'll give you a better non-theory with some actual explanatory power.

Sound fair?

 

[Chriliman]

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

That a moral only really matters when it affects you negatively?

Essentially, yes, morality really only matters to the degree that it effects people, either positively or negatively.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Essentially, yes, morality really only matters to the degree that it effects people, either positively or negatively.

I'm not personally affected by the behavior of pedophiles.

I do hold a moral judgement for their behavior.

Wanna try again?