"Ought"

anonymous person said:

Let me be very clear what my point is. Richard Taylor, an ethicist remarks,

A duty is something that is owed . . . . But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as duty in isolation . . . . The idea of political or legal obligation is clear enough . . . . Similarly, the idea of an obligation higher than this, and referred to as moral obligation, is clear enough, provided reference to some lawmaker higher . . . . than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can . . . be understood as those that are imposed by God. This does give a clear sense to the claim that our moral obligations are more binding upon us than our political obligations . . . . But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of a moral obligation . . . still make sense? . . . . the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart form the idea of God. The words remain, but their meaning is gone.

Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason, pp. 83-4.

Now if anyone here disagrees with this then they need to explain to me to whom we are morally obligated to and why we are obligated to them.

Click to expand...

anonymous person said:

The most common objection to Christianity that I have heard goes something like,

God ought not to have wanted people to worship Him. Since He does, I cannot go along with that.

Click to expand...

Of course you have the usual,

I am not a Christian because there is no evidence for it etc. etc. Now when pressed, most who say this will say that even if there were evidence, they still would not be Christian because ideas like worship, self-denial, and self-sacrifice which are part and parcel of Christianity just aren't their cup of tea.

All of these remarks carry with them the notion that something ought not to be the case, i.e. that God ought not do this or command that or this etc. Or that if God existed, the world ought not to be the way it is...

Click to expand...

This implies that there is a way things ought to be which is the same as saying that there is a plan or a design behind it all.

Click to expand...

So it seems to me that the only people that have a basis for making these types of statements are those that believe there is actually a planner or a designer behind it all.

Click to expand...

anonymous person said:

Richard Taylor, an ethicist remarks

Click to expand...

anonymous person said:

My mechanic can tell me that if I want to be able to drive my car for a long time, I ought to have regular maintenance performed on it.

But this does not obligate me to have regular maintenance done on my car. I may very well want the engine to blow up so that I can get my dad to buy me a new car.

The fact that an engine performs well under certain conditions in no way obligates me to make sure those conditions are met.

Click to expand...

Likewise, in the absence of God, it may be true that our species thrives under certain conditions, like any other thing that can thrive, a blade of grass, or a moth, or a bat, or a roach. But the fact that this is so in no way obligates me to see to it that these conditions are met.

Click to expand...

In the absence of God, a male of the homo sapien species has no obligation to refrain from taking another of the same species and forcefully copulating with it.

Click to expand...

Sharks and other species of life do this frequently.

Click to expand...

DaveW-Ohev said:

True. It implies the person saying that is putting their own opinion above everyone else, including God.

Click to expand...