The Moral Argument

[anonymous person]

Really? Because it would appear absolutely essential to your argument. Without a clear means of determining what god actually commands from what one thinks that god commands...your explanation of morality is entirely useless.

Not so. For a defense of premise one does not entail providing an epistemological thesis for how we come to know objective moral values and duties, but rather, an ontological thesis for the grounding of said values and duties.

A defense of premise two does not entail providing an epistemological thesis for objective moral values and duties either. For a defense of two, one need simply furnish at least one moral value and or duty which the recipient of the argument agrees is objective. Here I am thinking of something like: "The Al-Qaeda men who killed an atheist activist because he was an atheist were wrong." http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/asia/bangladesh-al-qaeda-atheists/index.html

 

[anonymous person]

So if anyone here thinks that the Bangladeshi Al-Qaeda were wrong regardless of what anyone says when they killed an atheist activist because he was an atheist, then you affirm premise two of the moral argument.

I most certainly affirm they were.

 

[Moral Orel]

As Dr. Craig pointed out earlier, why could not the value of possible worlds simply go on to infinity without end? I see no reason to think there is a "cap" or a maximum value world such that there could be no world better than it. For any world God created, there could be another world just like it with say, one more person in it that comes to know God, an incommensurable good and so on and on to infinity.

But you can't add just one more person to a world without affecting the whole world and all of time that goes beyond it. We could think of it hypothetically, sure, but it wouldn't actually be possible to add a person without changing the overall goodness of the world because it would affect so many things. Take it to the extreme, if God added another 10 billion people to the planet, and a lot of them found God, would that really make an improvement given all the new problems that would result? The world wouldn't work anymore according to the plan. Just like adding one more person to the world would affect the plan, even if only slightly.

In a world without us, why create us at all if it isn't good to do so? Isn't choosing not to do good bad? Obviously, it would be bad for me to rob someone, but isn't it also bad if I simply don't give to the poor? I would imagine God would do good because it is His nature to do good, it isn't simply that His nature prevents Him from doing evil. And wasn't creating us a good thing?

 

[anonymous person]

But you can't add just one more person to a world without affecting the whole world and all of time that goes beyond it. We could think of it hypothetically, sure, but it wouldn't actually be possible to add a person without changing the overall goodness of the world because it would affect so many things.

You're right. The illustration was just a quick one to illustrate that the value of goodness of possible worlds has no upper bound.

Take it to the extreme, if God added another 10 billion people to the planet, and a lot of them found God, would that really make an improvement given all the new problems that would result? The world wouldn't work anymore according to the plan. Just like adding one more person to the world would affect the plan, even if only slightly.

You are right, simply adding more people to a possible world does not necessarily make it better. It may be worse. Notice previously I specified the addition of one more person that came to know God. This coming to know God is an incommensurable good and thus would have made the world a better world (all other things being equal) than the one wherein this person did not exist.

In a world without us, why create us at all if it isn't good to do so? Isn't choosing not to do good bad? Obviously, it would be bad for me to rob someone, but isn't it also bad if I simply don't give to the poor? I would imagine God would do good because it is His nature to do good, it isn't simply that His nature prevents Him from doing evil. And wasn't creating us a good thing?

Creating us was a very good thing. Indeed after every creative period, God beheld what He had created and said that it was good. During the last and climactic period, He created man in His own Image and Likeness and proclaimed it not just good, but very good.

 

[Moral Orel]

Notice previously I specified the addition of one more person that came to know God. This coming to know God is an incommensurable good and thus would have made the world a better world (all other things being equal) than the one wherein this person did not exist.

But if God could add one more person that would come to Him, He would, wouldn't He have? It would be an "incommensurable good" so not doing so would be choosing inactivity instead of good, which would be bad. So it would stand to reason that God hasn't added more people because it wouldn't lead to more good. Only in our imaginations is it possible, and not in all practicality.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Not so. For a defense of premise one does not entail providing an epistemological thesis for how we come to know objective moral values and duties, but rather, an ontological thesis for the grounding of said values and duties.

A defense of premise two does not entail providing an epistemological thesis for objective moral values and duties either. For a defense of two, one need simply furnish at least one moral value and or duty which the recipient of the argument agrees is objective. Here I am thinking of something like: "The Al-Qaeda men who killed an atheist activist because he was an atheist were wrong." http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/asia/bangladesh-al-qaeda-atheists/index.html

Well I'm gonna have to disagree on that point. If you're going to claim that objective morals exist...it's absolutely essential to explain how one can derive these objective morals from god's commands.

Without this part of your argument...every time you proclaim that something is an objective moral, I can simply counter with "No it's not."

Without explaining how one finds these objective morals...you're left with an empty, baseless, hollow claim. I mean it's nice that you think there are objective morals...but thinking they exist doesn't make them so.

 

[Ana the Ist]

So if anyone here thinks that the Bangladeshi Al-Qaeda were wrong regardless of what anyone says when they killed an atheist activist because he was an atheist, then you affirm premise two of the moral argument.

I most certainly affirm they were.

What "people think" (as you stated it) is a reference to subjective morality...not objective morality.

What you would need to show to affirm the premise is that it's wrong regardless of how anyone thinks one way or the other.

In other words, you should never need to ask/state "if anyone thinks...." as a part of your argument.

 

[Oncedeceived]

That involved the death of innocents. Even if they might choose to do evil in the future, they hadn't done so yet.

It's not surprising to me that you hide behind talk of the "greater good". That is what tyrants cloak themselves in when they create fountains of blood.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I don't understand this thinking. It is clear that one person can bring about the death of millions. IF Stalin and Hitler were killed when they were babies millions and millions of people would not have died. WE have knowledge of how their lives turned out and how if they had died when babies less evil would have occurred.

 

[anonymous person]

But if God could add one more person that would come to Him, He would, wouldn't He have? It would be an "incommensurable good" so not doing so would be choosing inactivity instead of good, which would be bad. So it would stand to reason that God hasn't added more people because it wouldn't lead to more good. Only in our imaginations is it possible, and not in all practicality.

I was referring to possible worlds, not this actual world.

A possible world is a particular possible state of affairs, not an actual state of affairs.

This world is the actual world, but it need not be. It could have been otherwise. It could have been a very different world.

So when I am talking about the adding of one more person who comes to know God to a world making it thus better than the one equal to it in all respects save for the addition of the one to illustrate that there is no upper bound for value, I am speaking of possible worlds, not this world.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I just find it disturbing and creepy to see people attempt to justify atrocities and claim that it is all moral and good. It explains much about history.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Do you think if Hitler and Stalin were killed when they were babies rather than live and kill millions that would be a moral or good thing?

 

[anonymous person]

Well I'm gonna have to disagree on that point. If you're going to claim that objective morals exist...it's absolutely essential to explain how one can derive these objective morals from god's commands.

Without this part of your argument...every time you proclaim that something is an objective moral, I can simply counter with "No it's not."

Without explaining how one finds these objective morals...you're left with an empty, baseless, hollow claim. I mean it's nice that you think there are objective morals...but thinking they exist doesn't make them so.

If you don't think the Al-Qaeda guys were wrong regardless of what anyone thinks when they chopped an atheist into pieces with a machete because he was an atheist, and you want to say, "No, they were not wrong regardless of what anyone thinks", then that is fine. I would take the moral argument off of the table and say have a good day.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Well I'm gonna have to disagree on that point. If you're going to claim that objective morals exist...it's absolutely essential to explain how one can derive these objective morals from god's commands.

Without this part of your argument...every time you proclaim that something is an objective moral, I can simply counter with "No it's not."

Without explaining how one finds these objective morals...you're left with an empty, baseless, hollow claim. I mean it's nice that you think there are objective morals...but thinking they exist doesn't make them so.

1. We do not derive objective morals from God's commands.
2. You can counter with "no its not" but you would have to explain why every person on this thread is outraged by the immorality of killing children. It is like claiming oxygen doesn't exist all the while you are breathing.
3. One finds these morals by our own morality, other people and their morality and other cultures and their morality.

 

[anonymous person]

What "people think" (as you stated it) is a reference to subjective morality...not objective morality.

I used the phrase "regardless of what anyone thinks".

Did you see that phrase? That implies objectivity, or human independency, not subjective human dependency.

To convey this notion in other areas, we say things like 2+2=4 regardless of what anyone thinks about the matter.

We say that Raleigh is the capital city of North Carolina regardless of what anyone thinks.

We say that North America is a continent consisting of three countries regardless of what anyone thinks.

All of these propositions are objectively true. Their truth is NOT DEPENDENT on what anyone thinks. The propositions would be true even if every human was brainwashed into thinking they were false.

Likewise, when I say that the Al-Qaeda men were wrong regardless of what anyone thinks, I am talking about a moral fact.

Do you understand?

 

[anonymous person]

To clarify for those that are having trouble with what I mean by "objective".

The world in which we live exists objectively. It would exist even if there were no humans to perceive its existence.

The world is not an illusion in our minds. It exists independently of our minds and of our opinions or views or beliefs.

Likewise, when I say that chopping someone into pieces because they are an atheist is objectively wrong, that is to say that the act would be wrong even if every human being was brainwashed by Al-Qaeda into thinking it was right.

 

[Oncedeceived]

What "people think" (as you stated it) is a reference to subjective morality...not objective morality.

What you would need to show to affirm the premise is that it's wrong regardless of how anyone thinks one way or the other.

In other words, you should never need to ask/state "if anyone thinks...." as a part of your argument.

What someone thinks is based on the objective moral compass that we are all equipped with. Everyone thinks that unjustifiable murder is objectively wrong. Where the subjective part comes in is how one views what is murder.

 

[Moral Orel]

I was referring to possible worlds, not this actual world.

A possible world is a particular possible state of affairs, not an actual state of affairs.

This world is the actual world, but it need not be. It could have been otherwise. It could have been a very different world.

So when I am talking about the adding of one more person who comes to know God to a world making it thus better than the one equal to it in all respects save for the addition of the one to illustrate that there is no upper bound for value, I am speaking of possible worlds, not this world.

The reasoning still stands. I didn't mean if He added one more person right now. I mean if He could design a world with 10 billion souls that went to heaven, or a world with 20 billion souls that went to Heaven, wouldn't He make the world with 20 instead of 10? If he only makes 10, that's 10 billion good deeds He could have done, but chose not to without a "good" reason.

So the world is the way we see it, and is populated by the people that are here, to the capacity that it is, with the history and future that it has, because it is the best possible world. Doing it differently from the start would make it less than perfect and would have less good come as a result of it.

Or can God simply not do something that is "good" because He doesn't feel like it?

 

[Ana the Ist]

If you don't think the Al-Qaeda guys were wrong regardless of what anyone thinks when they chopped an atheist into pieces with a machete because he was an atheist, and you want to say, "No, they were not wrong regardless of what anyone thinks", then that is fine. I would take the moral argument off of the table and say have a good day.

Wonderful...taking it off the table is exactly the point. My opinion on any specific moral behavior can't possibly prove or disprove objective morality. My opinion can only relate to subjective morality (since any discussion of my opinion is a discussion of my subjective beliefs).

 

[Ana the Ist]

What someone thinks is based on the objective moral compass that we are all equipped with.

If this were true...then why wouldn't we all agree on good and bad? We don't...and that's an indicator that it's entirely a subjective opinion.

Everyone thinks that unjustifiable murder is objectively wrong. Where the subjective part comes in is how one views what is murder.

What's an "unjustifiable murder"? Moreover, how would you know the murderer hasn't justified it?

Non-specific situations that don't actually exist aren't very useful for understanding morality.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Missed the first quote and I'm adding to my response.

If this were true...then why wouldn't we all agree on good and bad? We don't...and that's an indicator that it's entirely a subjective opinion.

WE don't all agree that torturing a baby for fun is bad? We can't agree on that? We can't agree that lying other than to save someone's feelings or life is bad? We all can't agree that rape of babies is bad?

What's an "unjustifiable murder"? Moreover, how would you know the murderer hasn't justified it?

Non-specific situations that don't actually exist aren't very useful for understanding morality.

Ok. If a man decides that another man is unfit to live and thinks he is justified in thinking this, does that make it good or can we all agree it is bad?

 

[Ana the Ist]

1. We do not derive objective morals from God's commands.

Anonymous Person would disagree with you on this. He specifically said that we get objective morals from god's commands.

2. You can counter with "no its not" but you would have to explain why every person on this thread is outraged by the immorality of killing children. It is like claiming oxygen doesn't exist all the while you are breathing.

I would say that they agree on their opinions. It's really no more difficult than explaining why the vast majority of men prefer big bouncy boobies...that doesn't make them objectively good.

Besides, I'm only outraged when it happens under certain circumstances. In some circumstances...I'm not outraged at all.

3. One finds these morals by our own morality, other people and their morality and other cultures and their morality.

You're making a different objective moral argument than the one I addressed. Would you mind stating your argument for objective morals in full so I can address it?