From Morality to God

Moral Orel said:

We only enforce the norms we feel very strongly about.

Click to expand...

But there are also norms that we oppose, such as doing evil or keeping slaves, to take two examples already noted.

I'm not the one equivocating, that's why I started with defining "norm". Both of you guys are going back and forth between examples that use things humans choose and things we don't choose, but claiming "norm" is prescriptive for human behavior.

Click to expand...

I haven't done that at all, and the others arguably haven't. I never even touched refrigerators. They are cold, lifeless things.

I think you're hung up on a semantic quibble. If you are so intent on defining norms as descriptive patterns, then why don't we just use a different term? How about "prescription"? That's what the OP is talking about, not descriptive patterns.

I understand your desire to use your go-to argument that all ought statements are functions of subjectivity and emotion, but that rejoinder almost strikes me as off-topic in this thread. It seems like this thread is meant for people who accept the existence of prescriptive norms, as most non-believers do.

Human lifespan is useful as an example though. Deviating from the norm of dying of old age still affects folk's emotions. We're less sad the older the person is, aren't we? We say things like "He shouldn't have died so young" when the deceased deviate from the norm, don't we? You see how it's human emotion that permeates all of this and propels us to make statements of "ought"?

Click to expand...

The death makes us sad but we attribute no moral failure to the deceased.

I think Tree of Life's questions are good so I am going to step away for awhile until things settle down.

Tree of Life said:

We are also dealing with morality here in this thread. I am claiming that if you make moral claims and use concepts like "good" and "evil", then you are assuming God's existence. Maybe you don't make any moral claims and this is how you escape the argument. Do the concepts "good" and "evil" have any meaning for you?

Click to expand...

I only talked about "good" and "evil" in the other thread. Why won't you answer my question over there? I would love to talk about all this, but not if you refuse to engage with what I say.

zippy2006 said:

But there are also norms that we oppose, such as doing evil or keeping slaves, to take two examples already noted.

Click to expand...

Only when "norms" start opposing each other. When we started recognizing blacks as human we found the norm of slavery in conflict with the norm of human compassion for other humans.

zippy2006 said:

I haven't done that at all, and the others arguably haven't. I never even touched refrigerators. They are cold, lifeless things.

Click to expand...

What?? You brought in people dying, which by and large isn't a human choice, and ToL is talking about fridges, which is never a human choice.

zippy2006 said:

The death makes us sad but attribute no moral failure to the deceased.

Click to expand...

But see how we still say "ought"?

Moral Orel said:

What?? You brought in people dying, which by and large isn't a human choice, and ToL is talking about fridges, which is never a human choice.

Click to expand...

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.

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.

Descriptive, prescriptive: Meh.

Who describes? I do. And, so do you.
Who prescribes? I do. And, so do you.
Who decides what is good? I do. As do you.
Who decides what is evil? I do. As do you.

Morality is the ongoing, never ending, quest to come to an agreement at any point in time as to what is good. If we are lucky, we might agree on why it is good -- that is, we agree on a goal and that certain actions are good because they get us there.

Sanity is realizing that at any moment we may have to re-evaluate. This is the human project. Insanity is assuming that there is only one answer and the assumer has it. These wrongfully impute wickedness to those they haven't even bothered to engage in dialog.

1. Whenever we engage in moral activity we presuppose a moral norm. By moral activity I mean moral discourse, moral evaluation, and the like. When we say that "Brionna Taylor deserves justice", "Black Lives Matter!", "stealing is wrong", or similar statements we are engaging in these things. All of this presupposes a moral norm. Whenever we make a moral evaluation we suppose that there is some moral standard of judgment out there that tells us what's right and wrong and we are appealing to that.

When I say, for example, that "the fridge is broken - it ought not to be freezing the butter" I am appealing to a norm (a teleological norm). How do I know that it ought not be freezing the butter? I simply look at the manufacturer's guide to find out how the fridge ought to be working. The same happens in moral evaluation.

Click to expand...

Presupposing a norm is not the same as talking about physical facts that are going to be the case regardless of feelings either way: the fridge example doesn't work because it's not talking about an abstraction, it's demonstrable that food frozen too much loses taste and nutritional value, if not just outright becoming inedible or harmful.

The problem with the use of telos in regards to morality is the idea that we must understand everything in purely human terms of such a thing and also confuse purpose/meaning with function, like a fridge keeping food at a temperature that preserves it.

And this mistakes morality with something we have a guidebook for like with machinery, which we know about because of the standards already in place for manufacturing, programming, etc. Morality is not a physical fact, it's an abstract assessment we make

2. Relative norms depend upon absolute norms. Whenever we engage in moral activity we are actually presupposing not just any norm, but an absolute norm. Countries write laws and impose them on their citizens. Laws are a kind of relative norm because they are always subject to evaluation at a higher level. Just because something is a law, does not mean that it's good, just, or wise. We may always ask of any law: "Is this a good law? Is this a just law?" We can all think of example of unjust laws (Jim Crow laws, for example). But in order for us to evaluate any relative norm (like a law), there must be some absolute norm. An absolute norm is one that is not subject to evaluation at a higher level. We can ask: "Is this law good?" because there's something above the law whereby we may evaluate the law. Perhaps it's the constitution. Maybe when we ask: "Is this law good?" we are asking if it's constitutional. But then we may also ask: "Is our constitution good and just?" On and on this goes until we arrive at some absolute norm that cannot be evaluated at a higher level. If there is no such norm, we could never evaluate any relative norms at all. It would make no sense to ask: "Is this law good?"

Click to expand...

Absolute is inflexible, the problem is that a norm and a principle are distinct in that the principle underlies the norm. We have a principle of fairness or agency as valuable and then we can make the assessment about something being unfair or disrespecting human agency.

And the assessment is not strictly because of the principle as being authoritative, but applying it based on context of the actions done: if I kill someone by using a nearby gun to shoot them because I just wanted to end their life, that is VERY different from the same action done in a context where that was the best cause of action to save someone that was in danger from a person with a gun shooting down any person in their path.

The problem seems to be the idea that morality is not regarded as much different than a law except in the authority it possesses, not the reasonable and empirical considerations about moral principles and assessments of them in relation to and overlapping with laws as a way to govern society rather than governing people's actions individually by their recognition of morality as necessary for a functional society

3. Norms can only arise in personal contexts. Norms are only ever imposed by people. All relative norms that we know of are personal in nature. Behind every norm is a person or people who impose that norm. The fridge has a manufacturer that says how the fridge ought to work. The speed limit is imposed by a body of people. A nation's laws are imposed by people. Household rules are written and imposed by people. Every norm we can think of has a person or people standing behind it who have authority. It's very difficult to imagine an impersonal norm. What allegiance do we owe to the laws of physics, for example?

Click to expand...

Morality is, of course, a subjective personal aspect ontologically because it doesn't arise physically like chemical processes, but mentally, as we try to structure and govern society and communities.

The fridge example still doesn't work, and you point that out in your last sentence, because the fridge is not subject to abstract laws and rules to govern behavior of autonomous sapient entities, but physical laws about thermodynamics. If you're trying to do an analogy, it's not working, because we aren't machines and the laws and moral principles we utilize are not remotely comparable in their ontology to what we use to troubleshoot a broken appliance or such.

4. An absolute norm could only come from an absolute person. A norm that is not subject to evaluation at a higher level could only come from a person who is not subject to evaluation at a higher level - an absolute person. When we are talking about an absolute person, we are talking about something like God.

Click to expand...

The problem is that an absolute norm cannot be determined by any entity, absolute or not, because it would be mind-independent. Unless you're trying to make this about authority, in which case you have a more fundamental problem in the argument.

It's the same problem in the moral argument for God that triesd to connect God to the objective moral values, yet forgets those objective values are mind independent, so unless you conflate God with those values, you can't make God the arbiter or determinant factor, because God is generally defined as a mind (not always). And if you just conflate God with those principles, then you've taken away any personal aspect to God and made it little more than some pantheistic notion of absolute laws and likened to the Deistic creator, just modified to be the ground of being

5. Therefore, whenever we engage in moral activity, we presuppose God's existence. If God does not exist there could be no absolute norms and thus no norms at all and all moral activity would be without meaning. Yet we find moral activity very meaningful. When we engage in it, we presuppose that God exists even if we resist this idea. We might simultaneously reject belief in God and accept belief in God while doing this

Click to expand...

No: at best, I presuppose that human flourishing is valuable, but I can also demonstrate that in evidence.

There can be norms by your own argument's statements that they would still exist, they'd merely be relative, though that's focusing more on some ontological aspect versus the etiology: which is unavoidable in terms of societal structure with thinking entities. The difference is that, while we can come to them by subjective means, we can seek objectivity in the epistemological sense, that we are as unbiased as possible in the use of those principles and application thereof.

Moral activity has meaning in that we as sapient sentient entities understand that it is to our benefit to agree on these ideas. this isn't the same as our agreement on physical laws, which are descriptive, while moral and legal laws are prescriptive, saying what we ought to do in terms of behavior. It doesn't need a mind independent function to be practical and important in terms of the subjective and personal effects morality has in guiding behavior for individuals and society

Tree of Life said:

5. Therefore, whenever we engage in moral activity, we presuppose God's existence.

Click to expand...

I don't. I state my opinion, and may give reasons, if asked, as to why I state my opinion about a topic, and really not too much more....

If you disagree with my opinion and/or reasons for the topic, then we may discuss or debate further, accordingly. But if we agree on a matter, we agree on a matter.

Tree of Life said:

If God does not exist there could be no absolute norms and thus no norms at all and all moral activity would be without meaning.

Click to expand...

If God does exist, you merely push the topic back one step; but do not necessarily get to 'absolute morals'. Follow up considerations....

1. Does might make right?
2. Does being an 'uncaused cause' make Him fundamentally absolutely 'right'?

Tree of Life said:

Yet we find moral activity very meaningful.

Click to expand...

Sure. We apply meaning to things which are important to us - subjectively.

Tree of Life said:

When we engage in it, we presuppose that God exists even if we resist this idea.

Click to expand...

I don't.

Tree of Life said:

@Moral Orel "Normal" is not purely descriptive. It is prescriptive. A norm does not simply describe what usually happens, but prescribes what ought to happen.

Click to expand...

Huh? Says who? A norm is descriptive. If something is a proscribe or prescribed behavior, that's quite different from a norm.

Tree of Life said:

I’m using “norm” in the philosophical sense. At least when I say “norm” in my OP, I am referring to prescription.

Click to expand...

Belief in universal ethical principles simply doesn't require belief in the Abrahamic God. They can be grounded in a principle like Dào, Tiān, Dharma, etc.

Furthermore, closer analysis reveals the ethics of Christianity are not necessarily universal because they are rooted in divine command and only justified by natural law after the fact, meaning there is an a priori bias in all Christian ethical deliberation.

Tree of Life said:

See my OP for an argument to the contrary.

Click to expand...

I think it's bogus, because it would put will above nature, and I've never seen a case in nature where will is primary or antecedent.

Tree of Life said:

I don’t know what you’re talking about but if you’d like to show that my argument is bogus then show me how it is unsound or invalid.

Click to expand...

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.