Why Be Moral?

[Immanuel Can]

Can you show how this will fail?

Done. I've so far shown that it's rationally indefensible. That sure looks like failure to me.

You think so but offer no justifications.

Now you mistake the issue of burden of proof.

I have no burden of proof to defend your model. You must defend it, if it can be defended. Nobody else will.

I had admitted earlier, the secular objective absolute moral ought do not exists in nature.
However it can be justified from empirical evidence and philosophical reasoning.

Yes, you said this...you said it over, and over and over again. It's still not true.
So far, you have provided NO empirical evidence, and NO philosophical reasoning that showed it could. So you want us to take your word that such "empirical evidence" and "philosophical reasoning" is out there somewhere...but you make no effort at all to present it. The natural conclusion is that you don't have any, and are merely bluffing.

But if that's not so, you can simply present the missing "evidence" and "reasoning." Go ahead.

I mentioned the UN's Slavery Convention [not everything] as clue to its eventual possibility and highest productivity when organized and formalized efficiently.

That makes no sense at all. The UNSC is a complete failure, both in theory and in practice. It''s not an example of "eventual possibility," let alone "highest productivity," "organization" or "formal efficiency." These words, as you try to use them here, are just a smokescreen...babble...words without referent. "Productive" of what? "Organized" in what way? "Efficient for what?" "Possibility" of what, how?

No information. No light. Just babble.

Meanwhile the theistic morality model...

That's an outstandingly poor way to argue. After all, criticizing some other model will not fix your model. Even if EVERY other model were wrong, it would not go one stroke toward showing that yours was good.

If you think your model is any good, you're going to have to defend your own model rationally, on its own terms...not simply deflect like this.

You do this by showing a) what's working in your model, and b) why what's working in your model is rational.

I believe it is relevant to contrast my model with other inefficient models like the theistic model and the crude UN Model.

Then you believe wrongly.

For your model has not been shown to have any value at all yet. Absent that, it doesn't matter if there are a thousand other models that are flawed or fail completely -- yours is still a complete failure in its own right.

You have to present your claimed "empirical evidence" and outline your own "philosophical reasoning" for your model. Nothing else will amount to a defence of it.

4. The above variance between ideal and actual practices of chattel slavery had triggered each Nation to find solutions to reduce the number of chattel slavery via various efficient methods.
Obviously there are less chattel slaves at present as compared to say to 500, 250, 100 and 50 years ago when in the past there is no ideal to control against.
Surely you cannot deny this?

I do, of course. So do the experts in world slavery. For example, the website I sent you proves you wrong -- decisively wrong -- and provides some statistics to that effect. Do you travel? Do you ever go anywhere outside the West? If you did, you'd have no problem finding slavery.

I think you're assuming that the conditions that are in your own Western country are the same everywhere. But clearly, that's not even remotely true.

[Immanuel Can]

I have stated many times,

And every single time, been wrong...

The secular objective absolute moral ought and golden rule are verified from empirical evidence and philosophical reasoning to be used as a GUIDE only not as something 'duty bound' or to be enforced upon any individual.

Bluff.

You've done nothing to show that this is true. You just keep asserting it, in the absurd hope that if you say it enough, somebody will come to believe it.

I had already shown;

The UN Slavery Convention is already practiced at present and it relied upon a secular objective moral ought;

• No human ought to enslave [own] another human being as a slave [chattel].

It's not. It's disregarded.

First of all, few slave-using nations signed on, and then many of the signatories still have slaves. Here are some more facts -- though apparently, you don't want facts getting involved in your theory.https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/ ... rld-today/

[henry quirk]

No human ought to enslave [own] another human being as a slave [chattel]¿

Is this just opinion or reality?

If a man is just animate matter, then it's opinion.

If a man is sumthin' more than just animate matter, then it's reality.

So: how do we determine what a man is?

[Immanuel Can]

So: how do we determine what a man is?

Good question.

Any thoughts?

[RCSaunders]

You're right to point out there are a lot of different stories out there. Some people mistakenly assume that this must mean they're all wrong. But there's no reason to think that.

Not for you, apparently, but what you mean by reason, then, and what I mean are different. How many different boys calling wolf does one have to listen to before it becomes apparent when something is just attested to, it cannot simply be believed. "Well we know all the stories in the past have been untrue, but perhaps the next one won't be?"

In fact, it may well be the case that one of them is right, and even that parts of others also contain parts of truth, since every deception is at least partly made up of truth.

You think it's rational to accept something as true because, "it may be the case?" Some deceptions are partly truth, but why would anyone even consider them. Lies are like poison to the mind. Would you eat something you knew was poisonous because it might contain some real nourishment as well? In any case, most deceptions are simply made up, "out of whole cloth," as my grandmother used to say.

The problem is discerning the false from the true. And that takes more than dismissing the lot. That takes a sincere search.

That is exactly what the religious do not do. If one wants to know the truth, they do not seek it in what has always turned out to be untrue. It is not necessary to study all the wrong things that have been written and taught by those whose only claim to authority is that they are the authorities. There are endless sources of knowledge that do not demand acceptance, but proceed by clear explanation that can be understood, which one can accept or reject using one's own reason based on whether or not they truly understand what is presented. My sincere search of all religious literature reveals that it is all superstitious nonsense.

God says, "You shall seek for me and find me, when you seek for me with all of your heart." The seeker has to be sincerely willing to find, and has to look with that spirit. But if one does, then finding is possible.

That bit of mental gymnastics is exactly what is wrong with religion. No one seeks what they have no reason to suspect exists. Before one can seek something they must assume it exists, but that is the very thing in question. It can be said about anything.

Of course you do not notice, but I do, that the verse you quote does not say, "when you seek for me with your best reason." Doesn't the word, "heart," refer to one's deepest and sincerest convictions or intentions? So the verse really says, you'll find God when you already are convicted there is a God and intend to find that God you already believe in. It's like any other kind of superstition, one who already believes in ghosts, angels, extraterrestrials, or mental telepathy will find, "evidence," of those things.

So what's your plan, RC?

That's a silly question. It's like asking me what I plan to do in South Africa this summer, when you know I'm not going to be in South Africa. I'm not going to be anywhere after I'm dead.

Actually, RC, I don't believe that for a minute. And if you do, then perhaps you'd better plan on going on safari this summer.

Your wink is appropriate:

He who winks the eye causes trouble ... [Proverbs 10:10]
He who winks his eyes does so to devise perverse things ... [Proverbs 16:30]

I prefer to keep both my eyes wide open.

[henry quirk]

So: how do we determine what a man is?

Good question.

Any thoughts?

I know what works for me, but I got no clue what will work for other folks.

For me: it's my on-going, consistent, experience of myself (as free will, as person), in the world, coupled with reason.

[Walker]

So: how do we determine what a man is?

Good question.

Any thoughts?

I know what works for me, but I got no clue what will work for other folks.

For me: it's my on-going, consistent, experience of myself (as free will, as person), in the world, coupled with reason.

Kipling's poem If gives the objective definition of a man in terms of relationship.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

[Immanuel Can]

You're right to point out there are a lot of different stories out there. Some people mistakenly assume that this must mean they're all wrong. But there's no reason to think that.

Not for you, apparently,

Not for anyone. If there are a thousand wrong answers to a question, it will never logically tell us whether or not there is a right one. In fact, one might say that every mathematical sum has an infinite number of wrong answers...and only one right one.

In fact, it may well be the case that one of them is right, and even that parts of others also contain parts of truth, since every deception is at least partly made up of truth.

You think it's rational to accept something as true because, "it may be the case?"

No, no...no one said that. At this point, I'm speaking only of what is rationally possible.

The problem is discerning the false from the true. And that takes more than dismissing the lot. That takes a sincere search.

That is exactly what the religious do not do.

True, but a "religion" cannot "search." Only a person can.

My sincere search of all religious literature reveals that it is all superstitious nonsense.

I think you're mostly right...and yet, partly wrong.

God says, "You shall seek for me and find me, when you seek for me with all of your heart." The seeker has to be sincerely willing to find, and has to look with that spirit. But if one does, then finding is possible.

That bit of mental gymnastics is exactly what is wrong with religion. No one seeks what they have no reason to suspect exists. Before one can seek something they must assume it exists, but that is the very thing in question. It can be said about anything.

Well, actually, the truth is that they don't have to assume anything.

All they have to do is to be willing to consider the possibility that perhaps an answer is possible. It's not a matter of being credulous, but of being open to consider. That's not too much to ask a rational person. In fact, I think we can see it would merely be closed-minded to be unwilling to consider even the possibility of an answer to a question one already admitted one did not have an answer.

Of course you do not notice, but I do, that the verse you quote does not say, "when you seek for me with your best reason." Doesn't the word, "heart," refer to one's deepest and sincerest convictions or intentions?

Not actually. In the original Hebrew, ("heart" being the closest available English metaphor), the word referred to the core of one's personal being. Today, we would probably say it meant one's "consciousness" or "thought-life," or "self." But it also, of course, includes one's attitudes, too.

The unfortunate part of the translation "heart" is that the word, in English, has come to be a metaphor only for emotions, and especially those of affection and love...and Valentine's Day cards. Today, we contrast "heart" with "brain." But the Hebrews did not speak of "brain." You won't find that word anywhere their Scriptures, in fact. So it pretty clearly isn't what they had in mind.

Rather, it's a claim that a sincere search, a "search from the heart," as we would rightly say in English, will yield the answers. At the same time, it's a promise that a "half-hearted search," as we would also say, will yield nothing.

[Immanuel Can]

So: how do we determine what a man is?

Good question.

Any thoughts?

I know what works for me, but I got no clue what will work for other folks.

For me: it's my on-going, consistent, experience of myself (as free will, as person), in the world, coupled with reason.

That's not a bad starting point. It gives us at least a key piece of the definition. But, of course, it has a few obvious oversights, such as no reference to body at all. As given, it could as easily describe a sort of floating consciousness.

[henry quirk]

Good question.

Any thoughts?

I know what works for me, but I got no clue what will work for other folks.

For me: it's my on-going, consistent, experience of myself (as free will, as person), in the world, coupled with reason.

Kipling's poem If gives the objective definition of a man in terms of relationship.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

I've always liked that piece.

[henry quirk]

Good question.

Any thoughts?

I know what works for me, but I got no clue what will work for other folks.

For me: it's my on-going, consistent, experience of myself (as free will, as person), in the world, coupled with reason.

That's not a bad starting point. It gives us at least a key piece of the definition. But, of course, it has a few obvious oversights, such as no reference to body at all. As given, it could as easily describe a sort of floating consciousness.

As I see it: man is a composite of flesh and spirit, so, when I talk about free will, about person, I'm talkin' about that composite.

[Immanuel Can]

As I see it: man is a composite of flesh and spirit, so, when I talk about free will, about person, I'm talkin' about that composite.

Yep, fair enough.

[RCSaunders]

You're right to point out there are a lot of different stories out there. Some people mistakenly assume that this must mean they're all wrong. But there's no reason to think that.

It doesn't matter if half of them are true and right. There is no way to judge the truth of a story from the story itself, since anyone can just write or say anything. And what should one's attitude be toward a story that claims to be entirely true, but says something that are obviously not true, (or at least contradictory).
Not for you, apparently,

Not for anyone. If there are a thousand wrong answers to a question, it will never logically tell us whether or not there is a right one. In fact, one might say that every mathematical sum has an infinite number of wrong answers...and only one right one.

Yes, and the way to discover the right answer is not by studying that which is almost always wrong.

In fact, it may well be the case that one of them is right, and even that parts of others also contain parts of truth, since every deception is at least partly made up of truth.

You think it's rational to accept something as true because, "it may be the case?"

No, no...no one said that. At this point, I'm speaking only of what is rationally possible.

Your words: "In fact, it may well be the case that one of them is right." The idea that something can be, "rationally possible," that is not, "actually possible," is Kantian nonsense: the lie that says, if you don't know it's wrong, it could be right. You can say, if you don't know it's wrong, you don't know that it's not right, but your ignorance does not make it possible. Only the actual facts of reality make something possible, and that only way to know that possibility is to study those facts of reality which it is possible to know.

The problem is discerning the false from the true. And that takes more than dismissing the lot. That takes a sincere search.

That's absurd. Why would anyone spend their life searching for an unknown truth in millions of pages of writing, which might or might not contain some truth. And if there happened to be some truth in all that slop, how are they going to recognize it if they do not already know what it is? It would be like those I knew in Thailand searching in the mud of Mekong river for sapphires but came away empty handed, because they didn't know raw sapphires weren't shiny gems with stars.

Since human beings already have a perfectly good means of discovering and learning the truth--using their minds to reason from the evidence of the reality they are directly conscious of--it would be a waste of resources to spend one's time and energy looking for truth where it was least likely to exist, and wouldn't recognize if they found it.

That is exactly what the religious do not do.

True, but a "religion" cannot "search." Only a person can.

Well, duh! Who do you think, "the religious," are? Daisies? Not persons?

My sincere search of all religious literature reveals that it is all superstitious nonsense.

I think you're mostly right...and yet, partly wrong.

Well I know I'm partly wrong about some things. My wife has made that clear on more than one occassion, fortunately for me. Of course you think I'm wrong about the Christian Bible, which I would certainly expect you would be, and given what you believe, I'd even say ought to be. (Is that an "ought" from an, "is?")[/quote]

God says, "You shall seek for me and find me, when you seek for me with all of your heart." The seeker has to be sincerely willing to find, and has to look with that spirit. But if one does, then finding is possible.

That bit of mental gymnastics is exactly what is wrong with religion. No one seeks what they have no reason to suspect exists. Before one can seek something they must assume it exists, but that is the very thing in question. It can be said about anything.[/quote]
Well, actually, the truth is that they don't have to assume anything.

All they have to do is to be willing to consider the possibility that perhaps an answer is possible. It's not a matter of being credulous, but of being open to consider. That's not too much to ask a rational person. In fact, I think we can see it would merely be closed-minded to be unwilling to consider even the possibility of an answer to a question one already admitted one did not have an answer.

This idea of being, "open minded," has always intrigued me. It is always resorted to by those who are trying to put something over. The implication is, if you aren't willing to consider something, you are being close minded, as though one's mind were something one ought to be willing to throw anything into like an open cesspool. A rational individual protects his mind against any kind of corruption and will keep it closed against anything that contradicts the truth he already knows. The accusation of being, "closed minded," is like the accusation of being, "prejudiced," or, "extremist," because one refuses to consider being a little unfaithful to ones wife, only a little dishonest, and a little sick as better than being completely faithful, honest and well. Dismissing what is obvious nonsense is not being close minded, it is being rational.

Of course you do not notice, but I do, that the verse you quote does not say, "when you seek for me with your best reason." Doesn't the word, "heart," refer to one's deepest and sincerest convictions or intentions?

Not actually. In the original Hebrew, ("heart" being the closest available English metaphor), the word referred to the core of one's personal being. Today, we would probably say it meant one's "consciousness" or "thought-life," or "self." But it also, of course, includes one's attitudes, too.

The unfortunate part of the translation "heart" is that the word, in English, has come to be a metaphor only for emotions, and especially those of affection and love...and Valentine's Day cards. Today, we contrast "heart" with "brain." But the Hebrews did not speak of "brain." You won't find that word anywhere their Scriptures, in fact. So it pretty clearly isn't what they had in mind.

Rather, it's a claim that a sincere search, a "search from the heart," as we would rightly say in English, will yield the answers. At the same time, it's a promise that a "half-hearted search," as we would also say, will yield nothing.

That is one major problems of the Bible. Your explanation of what the Bible means by the words (Hebrew and Greek) translated, "heart," is just your and some others' interpretation. The Bible definitely describes theheart as being where one does thinking, "as man thinks in his heart, so is he," and believing, "believes in his heart." But you make the point that the Bible writer did no attribute thinking and feelings to the brain, or mind, (which are not the same thing) but to what we call the intestines (stomach and bowels). That just happens to be a mistake, but one's enough to discredit what is supposed to infallible.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, and the way to discover the right answer is not by studying that which is almost always wrong.

Well, the "almost always" is the residual problem.

If the one right answer is concealed among the many wrong ones, then digging through the pile is unavoidable. The only alternative is to give up any hope of ever finding the truth. In other words, not to seek at all.

Fortunately, there is some value in studying even the wrong answers, because for every one you find wrong, you eliminate one, and narrow the field toward truth. So that's good, too.

In fact, it may well be the case that one of them is right, and even that parts of others also contain parts of truth, since every deception is at least partly made up of truth.

You think it's rational to accept something as true because, "it may be the case?"

No, no...no one said that. At this point, I'm speaking only of what is rationally possible.

Your words: "In fact, it may well be the case that one of them is right."

Correct. "May well be" means, "it could be so." Not, "It is guaranteed to be so." I'm only pointing out that one of them being right is possible.

Got it?

The idea that something can be, "rationally possible," that is not, "actually possible," is Kantian nonsense:

I'm not even referring to Kant, or to that distinction. I'm speaking only in the common sense of the word "possible" -- as ordinary as when you say, "It's possible it will rain today."

The problem is discerning the false from the true. And that takes more than dismissing the lot. That takes a sincere search.

That's absurd. Why would anyone spend their life searching for an unknown truth in millions of pages of writing, which might or might not contain some truth.

Because it won't take anything close to a million pages, and truth is really, really valuable.

My sincere search of all religious literature reveals that it is all superstitious nonsense.

I think you're mostly right...and yet, partly wrong.

Well I know I'm partly wrong about some things. My wife has made that clear on more than one occassion, fortunately for me.

Of course you think I'm wrong about the Christian Bible, which I would certainly expect you would be, and given what you believe, I'd even say ought to be. (Is that an "ought" from an, "is?")

No. It's an "ought" derived from "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." That's all. And given that that is what I believe, you're right to expect me to do that.

I return the courtesy. Given that you are skeptical, I expect you to be skeptical. If you didn't ask questions and express doubts about what I say, I'd be disappointed.

God says, "You shall seek for me and find me, when you seek for me with all of your heart." The seeker has to be sincerely willing to find, and has to look with that spirit. But if one does, then finding is possible.

That bit of mental gymnastics is exactly what is wrong with religion. No one seeks what they have no reason to suspect exists. Before one can seek something they must assume it exists, but that is the very thing in question. It can be said about anything.

Well, actually, the truth is that they don't have to assume anything.

All they have to do is to be willing to consider the possibility that perhaps an answer is possible. It's not a matter of being credulous, but of being open to consider. That's not too much to ask a rational person. In fact, I think we can see it would merely be closed-minded to be unwilling to consider even the possibility of an answer to a question one already admitted one did not have an answer.

This idea of being, "open minded," has always intrigued me. It is always resorted to by those who are trying to put something over.

"Always" is a big word.

It's true that sometimes people say "Be open-minded," when they really mean "Stop thinking," or "Stop criticizing." I don't mean that. I mean no more than the sort of skepticism that remains open in extremis, to the possibility that an answer can emerge.

Dismissing what is obvious nonsense is not being close minded, it is being rational.

Well, in the case of "obvious nonsense," that's quite true. But only when things are both "nonsense," i.e. not even rationally integrated or consistent, and "obviously" so.

I'm going to suggest that is not the present situation.

Of course you do not notice, but I do, that the verse you quote does not say, "when you seek for me with your best reason." Doesn't the word, "heart," refer to one's deepest and sincerest convictions or intentions?

Not actually. In the original Hebrew, ("heart" being the closest available English metaphor), the word referred to the core of one's personal being. Today, we would probably say it meant one's "consciousness" or "thought-life," or "self." But it also, of course, includes one's attitudes, too.

The unfortunate part of the translation "heart" is that the word, in English, has come to be a metaphor only for emotions, and especially those of affection and love...and Valentine's Day cards. Today, we contrast "heart" with "brain." But the Hebrews did not speak of "brain." You won't find that word anywhere their Scriptures, in fact. So it pretty clearly isn't what they had in mind.

Rather, it's a claim that a sincere search, a "search from the heart," as we would rightly say in English, will yield the answers. At the same time, it's a promise that a "half-hearted search," as we would also say, will yield nothing.

That is one major problems of the Bible. Your explanation of what the Bible means by the words (Hebrew and Greek) translated, "heart," is just your and some others' interpretation.

Naw, it's not like that.

Translation may look a bit opaque if you've never done it, but if you have, you quickly realize that there are features of a given language itself that help you sort out the meanings, such as context, syntactic patterns, repeated idioms (like "heart") and so forth. And depending on the amount of study that has been put into the particular language, over a long period of time, and by scholars with vastly different personal preferences, agendas, cultural backgrounds, and so on, and depending on the size and length of the work in question, it's possible to get really excellent definitions.

There is no book in history so studied in this regard as the Bible. If any document has every been carefully scrutinized, debated, hashed over, debated again, re-translated, and so on, it's the Bible. And it's been done by Christians for two thousand years, and by Jews for a good deal longer. The word "heart" comes from Torah (the Prophets, actually), and so it's been examined for around 2500 years now, by some of the smartest and most diligent scholars who have ever lived. I think we have a pretty good translation in hand.

And nowadays, there are truly amazing study works available for it; you probably cannot imagine how good they are.

[RCSaunders]

There is no book in history so studied in this regard as the Bible. If any document has every been carefully scrutinized, debated, hashed over, debated again, re-translated, and so on, it's the Bible. And it's been done by Christians for two thousand years, and by Jews for a good deal longer. The word "heart" comes from Torah (the Prophets, actually), and so it's been examined for around 2500 years now, by some of the smartest and most diligent scholars who have ever lived. I think we have a pretty good translation in hand.

Actually, you have identified one obvious reason why one should not rely on the Bible as a source of knowledge or truth. (Of course, no book or authority ought to be relied on as such.)

Perhaps you think the Bible is something else, but all the Bible believing Christians I know believe the Bible is God's revelation of himself and of His will. Why would an omniscient God not be able to write a book that reveals the truth in language that could be understood by any of his creatures. Why would God have a book written that was so obtuse and confusing that thousands of scholars have to study it to figure our what it means and write millions of pages to explain it. Then, none of those scholars agree either on what the book says or what it means. If anything else had been studied for over 2000 yeas, and no progress had been made in all that time, it would be obvious that there is something wrong with the assumption there is some hidden esoteric meaning that will finally be ferreted out. (I have come to a similar conclusion about philosophy, except that philosophy has actually gone backwards, canceling any earlier progress.)

Well, maybe you don't see it, but that is one reason I think it is a waste of time looking for the truth in the Bible or any other so-called sacred writings. I do not think studying the Bible itself is a waste of time, however, both because so much Western literature would be very difficult to understand without understand both what the Bible says and what those influenced by the Bible believe, and, because it is a wonderful example certain literary styles and methods, some of which have been lost these days.