Where is the hope in atheism?

[2PhiloVoid]

So there is something wrong with people who like Brussels sprouts.

...or maybe the recipe you've referenced simply sucks. I love Brussels sprouts; they're one of my favorite things to eat, when prepared "correctly."

 

[Silmarien]

...or maybe the recipe you've referenced simply sucks. I love Brussels sprouts; they're one of my favorite things to eat, when prepared "correctly."

Burn the heretic!

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Burn the heretic!

That's fine. Just don't burn the Brussels sprouts. Your dinner guests will thank you.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Moral realism does not depend upon the existence of a specific code of morality that everyone will always agree with.

It doesn't depend upon it...but that is one of the points that makes moral realism incoherent. If two moral realists disagree upon a moral fact, then they cannot both be correct....and neither is capable of proving their position (because in reality, they're just opinions).

If there is such a thing as perfectly functioning moral senses, then that alone is sufficient for moral realism.

What would the moral sensory organ be?

 

[Silmarien]

It doesn't depend upon it...but that is one of the points that makes moral realism incoherent. If two moral realists disagree upon a moral fact, then they cannot both be correct....and neither is capable of proving their position (because in reality, they're just opinions).

And if a realist and a relativist disagree on their metaethics, they cannot both be correct, and neither is capable of proving their position (because all positions are ultimately just opinions). So by your logic it is incoherent to hold any theory of metaethics as true, including your own, simply because there will always be competing theories.

For the record, moral realists can disagree on the particulars without having vastly different approaches to underlying moral intuitions. As long as both people believe that value judgments say something about the world, then they can have a conversation and perhaps come to an understanding (though that's trickier with divine command theorists). Conversation with a relativist, on the other hand, is impossible, as there is nothing to discuss. You won't even acknowledge that anorexia is bad.

What would the moral sensory organ be?

The brain, presumably, assuming it alone is the seat of consciousness.

This is the last reply you're going to get from me. After your antics over witchcraft and complete descent into sophistry, I don't see the point in engaging with you at all. Had you accepted that your analysis of witchcraft was historically flawed and focused on something like heresy instead, that could have led somewhere interesting, but as you were incapable of accepting any historical correction whatsoever, I'm going to have to assume that you're not interested in conversation at all. Goodbye.

 

[essentialsaltes]

And if a realist and a relativist disagree on their metaethics, they cannot both be correct

True.

and neither is capable of proving their position (because all positions are ultimately just opinions).

No, on moral subjectivism, only moral statements (those with 'ought' or 'wrong', etc.) are opinions rather than facts. The claim that "moral facts exist" is not itself a moral statement. There's hope that it or its negation is true (and can be proven).

 

[Ana the Ist]

If you think that outside of a moral context, good/bad can be objective values, I would certainly like to hear more. I do not see how you can hold that a tsunami is objectively bad without opening the door to moral facts.

You do realize that good/bad have definitions that are apart from the context of morality, don't you?

 

[Silmarien]

No, on moral subjectivism, only moral statements (those with 'ought' or 'wrong', etc.) are opinions rather than facts. The claim that "moral facts exist" is not itself a moral statement. There's hope that it or its negation is true (and can be proven).

In that case, you're just taking refuge in semantical games. You cannot cordon off moral statements and say that these are opinions, but that other statements have factual content, simply because we say so. It is true that people disagree over whether slavery, for example, is good, but this is not evidence for moral subjectivism, unless we want to claim that the existence of disagreement is always evidence against the possibility of an objective answer. That quickly lands us into "truth does not exist" territory.

Do people disagree on moral issues? Yes. Does this show anything at all? Not necessarily. A 19th century slaveholder had as little of an incentive to examine his moral position as a 21st century YEC might his scientific one. People have ulterior motives that interfere with their reasoning in all fields, not just morality, so if you want evidence for subjectivism, you need to look elsewhere.

 

[Ana the Ist]

And if a realist and a relativist disagree on their metaethics, they cannot both be correct, and neither is capable of proving their position (because all positions are ultimately just opinions). So by your logic it is incoherent to hold any theory of metaethics as true, including your own, simply because there will always be competing theories.

Moral relativism holds that moral judgements are opinions...so I'm not sure why you'd think a relativist would try to prove a subjective opinion.

For the record, moral realists can disagree on the particulars without having vastly different approaches to underlying moral intuitions. As long as both people believe that value judgments say something about the world, then they can have a conversation and perhaps come to an understanding (though that's trickier with divine command theorists). Conversation with a relativist, on the other hand, is impossible, as there is nothing to discuss. You won't even acknowledge that anorexia is bad.

I do acknowledge anorexia is bad lol...that's definitely my opinion on anorexia.

The conversation only becomes incoherent when you claim that the moral position that anorexia is "bad" is somehow an objective fact. The moment I ask you to show this is true...or how you could even know such a thing...you simply retreat to incredulity.

Incredulity isn't an argument.

The brain, presumably, assuming it alone is the seat of consciousness.

Lol seriously?? I suppose the transmitter for "moral sensory data" must be ideas then...since we need only to think of a behavior in order to make moral judgements about it.

I don't mean to laugh...but it is amusing to watch you try and contort the process of thinking and forming opinions into some objective sensory experience.

This is the last reply you're going to get from me.

Promises promises.

After your antics over witchcraft and complete descent into sophistry, I don't see the point in engaging with you at all. Had you accepted that your analysis of witchcraft was historically flawed *snip*

Historically flawed?? Based upon what? You didn't offer anything to back up your claim that witch burnings were perpetrated by people who weren't of sound mind.

and focused on something like heresy instead, that could have led somewhere interesting, but as you were incapable of accepting any historical correction whatsoever, I'm going to have to assume that you're not interested in conversation at all. Goodbye.

If you want me to believe a rather ridiculous claim like "witch burnings were akin to riots"....you'll have to offer up more than your word and an Amazon book recommendation.

 

[Ana the Ist]

In that case, you're just taking refuge in semantical games. You cannot cordon off moral statements and say that these are opinions, but that other statements have factual content, simply because we say so.

If you shoot until someone...we can make factual statements about that incident. We can make factual statements about the bullet, the gun, the people involved, etc....because these statements relate to objective aspects of reality.

When we say that it was morally good/bad for you to shoot that person, this is an opinion. It's a value judgement which cannot be demonstrated.

It is true that people disagree over whether slavery, for example, is good, but this is not evidence for moral subjectivism, unless we want to claim that the existence of disagreement is always evidence against the possibility of an objective answer.

How would you access an objective answer in that situation?

That quickly lands us into "truth does not exist" territory.

Moral truths don't exist...but moral opinions do.

Do people disagree on moral issues? Yes. Does this show anything at all? Not necessarily. A 19th century slaveholder had as little of an incentive to examine his moral position as a 21st century YEC might his scientific one. People have ulterior motives that interfere with their reasoning in all fields, not just morality, so if you want evidence for subjectivism, you need to look elsewhere.

Not everyone who disagrees with you does so out of "ulterior motives".

Once you start heading down that hole...you'll start to sound like those fundamentalists you dislike so much. They've got a tendency to think that everyone secretly sees things their way, so when any large scale disagreement occurs, they explain it away by conspiracy (the gay agenda, liberal agenda, science agenda, etc).

 

[Chriliman]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here...

If they're acknowledging that morals exist objectively...then they aren't a relativist.

Morals do exist objectively because people who have morals objectively exist. Whether their morals are good or bad depends on what they believe and how they act on those beliefs.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In that case, you're just taking refuge in semantical games. You cannot cordon off moral statements and say that these are opinions, but that other statements have factual content, simply because we say so.

This would mean that either everything is objective or everything is subjective. I don't think anyone wants to go there, so maybe you should reconsider. I don't think it's a game to say that some things are matters of personal taste, and in other cases, there is a fact of the matter.

It is true that people disagree over whether slavery, for example, is good, but this is not evidence for moral subjectivism

Phew. Glad I didn't make that argument.

I would look almost as silly as someone who said that the fact that people have opinions about morality is evidence that moral facts exist.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Moral relativism holds that moral judgements are opinions...so I'm not sure why you'd think a relativist would try to prove a subjective opinion.

Because "Moral judgments are opinions" is not a moral judgment. "Moral judgments are wicked" is a moral judgment.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Morals do exist objectively because people who have morals objectively exist.

I think you're confusing the difference between the existence of an opinion...and whether or not the opinion itself is factual.

 

[Silmarien]

This would mean that either everything is objective or everything is subjective. I don't think anyone wants to go there, so maybe you should reconsider. I don't think it's a game to say that some things are matters of personal taste, and in other cases, there is a fact of the matter.

From a certain perspective, everything is subjective. I absolutely want to go there, because I'm in part a Neo-Kantian who will go after anyone who tries to insist that we have access to the external world as it actually is. It is necessarily mediated by our cognitive structures and sensory perceptions, and we can never know precisely how well these match up. There is only one thing that I hold as an absolute truth: that something exists instead of nothing. This makes the anchor of my reality Being Itself rather than the subjective self, since I do not entirely accept the Cogito Ergo Sum.

So yeah, if we're talking about what qualifies as facts, know that I'm working from within a metaphysical framework that is almost certainly radically different from yours. I generally see both objectivity and subjectivity as Cartesian confusion at best, illusory at worst.

Phew. Glad I didn't make that argument.

You didn't, no. In the post I was initially replying to, however, that argument actually was made. If you agree with me that this sort of reasoning is problematic, I'm not sure why we're arguing about it at all.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You didn't, no. In the post I was initially replying to, however, that argument actually was made. If you agree with me that this sort of reasoning is problematic, I'm not sure why we're arguing about it at all.

Actually, I made the point that it works against any hope of logical coherence for moral realism...not that it was somehow evidence for moral subjectivism.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

@Ana the Ist

We are clearly at cross-purposes. This will be my last reply to you in this thread. I am unconvinced that a fruitful discussion is possible.

1: I did not address your questions about "not getting bogged in semantics", because it would have done so if I had. You claimed witch-hunters were OT realists, so I showed you witch-hunting arose without any OT input of any sort. A mistranslation or understanding was later roped in, but the OT has little to do with the phenomenon. This is a circumferential idea anyway, as moral relativists are just as likely, if not more, to kill.

2. Which brings us to the fact that we don't even seem to agree when someone is a relativist or realist. The Nazis called themselves relativists, they denied explicitly the existence of an absolute morality. Quote Hitler as much as you want, but context will make this clear.
The Nazis believed that the Aryan race was superior genetically to the Jewish. This was a 'realist' claim, but no moral position came in as of yet. They held that Supermen could transcend the limitations of morality placed upon them by the weak, in fact had a right to. In that way they would create the new morality according to their own Will. So the Nazis considered the Jews evil and their extermination a moral good, but by their own morality created according to their Will. This is a relativist position, though couched in the rules of moral or ethical behaviour, as they determined what this would be.

They did the same with Christianity, crafting a 'Positive Christianity' shorn of its 'negative' elements such as 'blessed are the meek' or Semitic elements. In this way, they could then paint it as dedicated to the German Volk, with Jesus as an Aryan opposing Jewish weakness. So you find many quotes of Hitler speaking good of Jesus or such, but what he means thereby has to be made plain. The Nazis aren't some weird Other, that somehow determined a heretofore hidden universal truth of evil Jews, but an outgrowth of 19th century moral relativism - in fact predicted to come to being by 19th century intellectuals like Dostoevsky and Nietsche.

3. I gave you the article on Conversion and Somatoform disorders and their historical classifications, to show that it has little connection to Mass Hysteria. It may elicit it though. So the fact that you couldn't find it there was exactly my point. And again, you linked no experts on the topic. It is not sociology that we were discussing. The only expert article linked was the one I linked, I am afraid. John Waller's article anyway agrees with me, not you, and he is a layman historian, not a medical expert. This is merely a fallacious appeal to authority therefore.

4. The Slave Trade arose from economic necessity. It was strenuously opposed by the Church, even by Archbishops of Mexico and prelates tasked with overseeing the New World. These were hardly unimportant naysayers. But Mammon often prevails, as occured in this case, and the Church had to come to terms with facts on the ground. It is a similar position to Catholicism opposing birth control or abortion - some churches or groups will buck the trend of the Church, siding with popular opinion, while Religious Tradition and Magisterium will dig in its heels. Read Hugh Thomas' excellent histories of the colonisation of Latin America and this will be plain.

Anyway, I thank you for your time and effort, but we aren't agreeing and even disagreeing on the base from which we would argue, so further discussion will be fruitless I feel. I've read extensively on the Nazis, Witch-hunting and the Slave Trade, as I am a history buff. Likewise, I have had to do with conversion and somatoform disorders in the previous iterations of my professional career. My opinion is unlikely to change on this account from a few random culled and popular articles, a single Hitler quote, and the opinion of an anonymous internet poster. My efforts to discuss with you, seem in like manner to fall on deaf ears or at least set in its ways. I don't have the patience nor inclination to prove extensively what you would have me do here. I've directed to where such proofs could be found, as did Silmarien, so you could follow up if you'd wish to. As such, I bid you good day, I am done with this discussion.

 

[Chriliman]

I think you're confusing the difference between the existence of an opinion...and whether or not the opinion itself is factual.

No I'm not because I explained that it matters(objectively) what a person believes and how they act on their beliefs. That's how you can determine if they're objectively right or wrong in their beliefs and actions.

 

[TLK Valentine]

No I'm not because I explained that it matters(objectively) what a person believes and how they act on their beliefs. That's how you can determine if they're objectively right or wrong in their beliefs and actions.

So what is objective morality?

 

[Chriliman]

So what is objective morality?

It's the loving or hateful interaction between two or more objectively existing beings.

From a Christian perspective, God is referred to as the first being to act in a purely loving way towards other objectively existing beings.