What could make morality objective?

[Immanuel Can]

Asked and answered.

Not really. I can find no prohibition to marrying a close relative in the Bible.

Lev. 18:6. There ya go.

There are also many other cases dealt with in Leviticus 18 (daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, animals, two men, two sisters, a mother and daughter...and so on).

But even if you were to ignore all that, and for argument's sake, let's say we narrow the definition to only one act, with only one person -- such as "no brother-sister stuff," as in Lev. 18:9.

Do that, and it won't make one stitch of difference to the present argument: there would still be a thing called "incest" and it would still be morally prohibited, so away we go from there.

[henry quirk]

And: you forgot prickly.

Yes! Yes I did, and tardy too.

One man's tardy is another's right on time.

Anyway...

I've completed my opus, am profoundly disappointed with it (it reads like all the long-winded philo-essays in this place [it's boring]). I think I'll let it sit in my drafts folder overnight & review it in the morning with a fresh eye (and a less inflamed sciatic nerve). If I like it, I'll post it; if I don't I'll toss it in the round file cabinet and post sumthin' short, pithy, and raw.

By Crom, I will add one more thread to this place (cuz I promised you all raw meat, and raw meat you'll have, you hyenas).

done & done

have at it

[Peter Holmes]

The factual assertion 'incest is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings' is true or false - and what people believe makes no difference.

But the hypothetical assertion 'if incest is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings, then incest is morally wrong' doesn't follow, even if the antecedent is true. It assumes that acting contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings is morally wrong - and that's a matter of judgement. For example, if a god commanded us to kill practising homosexuals, many of us would judge that to be immoral.

The assertion 'incest is morally wrong' is not factual, because it has no truth-value independent from what people believe. And the same is true of the assertion 'homosexuality is morally wrong'. The hypothetical 'if homosexuality is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings, then homosexuality is morally wrong' also doesn't follow, even if the antecedent is true.

And this is why morality isn't and can't be objective: a moral assertion always expresses a value-judgement, and that must be subjective.

[Veritas Aequitas]

"Objective scientific theories are grounded on subjectivism, i.e. the scientists as philosophical-subjects has the final say based on their intersubjective consensus and peer review."

A lot of Japanese philosophers were saying that same thing in Hiroshima--the day before. The intersubjective consensus was, it couldn't happen and all the peer reviewed papers said so.

Pulling a fast one?

You are conflating "scientists" with "philosophers" [Japanese].

Whatever it is, the ultimate is subjectivity, i.e. meta-subjectivity.

[Veritas Aequitas]

What was your question about your god? I must have missed it.

It's whether we're going to dismiss God from consideration when we answer the question, how can morality be objective?

After all, if we do that, certain logical conclusions will follow. If we do not, others will. But the determinant in both cases will be our presupposition about what is possible.

The point of objectivity is that we dismiss the opinions of agents (their judgements and beliefs) in assessing the truth-value of factual assertions - as you know perfectly well. So if a factual assertion such as 'water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen' is true, who produces it and who believes it's true are irrelevant. And if it's true, that a god thinks it is or isn't true - and the very existence of the god or any other agent - are irrelevant.

In other words, what we call truth - which is a function of some factual assertions - has to do with descriptions of reality, and nothing to do with who produces or endorses those descriptions. Truth isn't a matter of opinion, so it isn't a matter of a god's opinion.

Now, to repeat, produce a moral assertion that makes a factual claim, with the truth-value of 'true', about reality - as does any true factual assertion - that would be false if reality were different - as would be any factual assertion.

Or, instead, carry on dishonestly deflecting attention from your inability to do so - dishonestly and amazingly shamelessly.

Theism is not grounded on facts, thus whatever the moral assertion in relation to theism, it follows that it can never be a factual claim in alignment with reality.

On the other hand, I have argued, we can establish non-ontological* secular objective absolute moral ought[s] that are verified from empirical evidences within reality to be used a GUIDE only.
*ontological in this case = independent of the human conditions.

[Belinda]

Who was Cain's wife?

Good point that shall be ignored by IC

Asked and answered.

The Bible also talks about a lot of things that people did that were not good, not being recommended, and not moral. David killed Bathsheba's husband. It's not being recommended. Abraham denied his wife, to the point where other men tried to 'take' her. Again, not being recommended. Likewise Moses' parents. Not recommended, just reported.

Real life is like that: good people do bad things -- and even bad people sometimes do good things, as when Manasseh repented. That's the nature of human beings, as the Bible sees it. So we can't just jump to the conclusion that if somebody's in the Bible, then everything he did is being recommended or morally cleared. It's only being recommended if it was a moral thing to do in the first place.

That's one difference between Biblical history and legend. In legends and myths, the characters tend to be one-dimensional and act quite uniformly, according to whatever particular nature the author's trying to ascribe to them; in the telling of history, people do good things, and people do bad things, act in character and violate their basic character, and it all gets reported anyway, because the point is to tell what happened -- not, as in myth, where it's merely to idealize or represent symbolically, because nothing really happened anyway.

All historiography, including such historiography is in The Bible, requires interpretation. Interpretation involves knowing the reasons for telling a story of man's past. Immanuel Can seems to believe the Biblical authors wrote history like a modern historiographer writes the story of the past.

Even if Biblical authors did perchance record man's past like a modern historiographer what makes Immanuel think God preferred Biblical historiography to historiography written for , say, Americans of the 19th century?

[Sculptor]

Who was Cain's wife?

Good point that shall be ignored by IC

Asked and answered.

The Bible also talks about a lot of things ...

That are contradictory, confused and bullshit.

[RCSaunders]

"Objective scientific theories are grounded on subjectivism, i.e. the scientists as philosophical-subjects has the final say based on their intersubjective consensus and peer review."

A lot of Japanese philosophers were saying that same thing in Hiroshima--the day before. The intersubjective consensus was, it couldn't happen and all the peer reviewed papers said so.

Pulling a fast one?

It was successful too.

[RCSaunders]

Asked and answered.

Not really. I can find no prohibition to marrying a close relative in the Bible.

Lev. 18:6. There ya go.

There I go, what? I already gave those references and more, which only have to do with having sexual relations outside marriage.

I wrote:

Not really. I can find no prohibition to marrying a close relative in the Bible. All the references (Lev. 18, 20, Deut. 27) talk about sexual relationships with close relatives, outside of marriage. A brother is required to marry and produce children with his brother's wife if he dies. (Deut, 25:5 - 10)

Having sexual relations with a brother's wife is forbidden in Lev. 18:16, not marriage. There is also the little problem here of God ordering bigamy, because the brother must do this whether he already has a wife or not.[/quote]

[Immanuel Can]

Having sexual relations with a brother's wife is forbidden in Lev. 18:16, not marriage.

Right. Because "levirite marriage" was fine. The brother would be dead anyway, and you were doing him a favour by "raising up children to him". If he were alive, of course, then what you'd be doing is "adultery." But that's quite a different thing from incest, which is explicitly forbidden in 18:6.

But here's the only important point: if there is even one act forbidden under the category of "incest," then we have such a category, and my argument only requires that that "incest," whatever you include in its definition, is objectively wrong.

Would you dispute that there is ANY act that is "incest" and is wrong?

Unless you do, you haven't got a rejoinder that works there.

[Belinda]

In at least one traditional society to sit on one's mother in law's bed is incestuous.

[RCSaunders]

Having sexual relations with a brother's wife is forbidden in Lev. 18:16, not marriage.

Right. Because "levirite marriage" was fine. The brother would be dead anyway, and you were doing him a favour by "raising up children to him". If he were alive, of course, then what you'd be doing is "adultery." But that's quite a different thing from incest, which is explicitly forbidden in 18:6.

But here's the only important point: if there is even one act forbidden under the category of "incest," then we have such a category, and my argument only requires that that "incest," whatever you include in its definition, is objectively wrong.

Would you dispute that there is ANY act that is "incest" and is wrong?

Unless you do, you haven't got a rejoinder that works there.

It doesn't really matter, but, the word, "incest," does not appear anywhere in the Bible. If you want to take some examples of condemned sexual relations between some relationships as some kind of general principle, I certainly don't care. It's still nonsense. The Bible forbids all sorts of things Christians blow off with all kinds of rationalizations. Do work on Saturday? How many visitor's feet have you washed recently? [The questions are rhetorical. Please don't answer them.]

[Immanuel Can]

It doesn't really matter, but, the word, "incest," does not appear anywhere in the Bible.

Heh. I was predicting you'd say that.

The concept is, for sure. Whether we label it "incest" or "brother-sister no-no" is not material. It's exactly the same act, and condemned exactly the same way.

[Immanuel Can]

The factual assertion 'incest is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings' is true or false - and what people believe makes no difference.

But the hypothetical assertion 'if incest is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings, then incest is morally wrong' doesn't follow, even if the antecedent is true. It assumes that acting contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings is morally wrong - and that's a matter of judgement.

Actually, it could only "not follow" if God were not, in fact, the Creator of the very things being judged, and the Empowerer of the judgment used rightly to assess them. But He is both. As such, only He can say what a given thing was created for, or created to be, and only His judgments can be perfectly correct in identifying what those things are. That's what makes a things morally right or wrong in the first place: they were constituted as such in His act of purposive creation.

I think maybe you're still thinking ex-post-facto, as if the Creation happened all by itself, and then God had to appear after-the-fact and assess which parts of it are good and evil. That is not the postulate. The postulate is that the very (right) concepts of good and evil are, in fact, derivative of what He has done, and what his judgment tells us about the things He's done when He created them.

The assertion 'incest is morally wrong' is not factual, because it has no truth-value independent from what people believe.

It is factual, because the created nature of sexuality means that the Creator alone can rightly tell us what its original function is. And it will not matter one whit what "people" believe, since nothing they believe actually changes reality or reconstitutes creation itself. Their opinions can be right, or they can be wrong; but they are right or wrong to the extent that they reflect or fail to reflect the original purpose for which things were created.

[Peter Holmes]

The factual assertion 'incest is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings' is true or false - and what people believe makes no difference.

But the hypothetical assertion 'if incest is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings, then incest is morally wrong' doesn't follow, even if the antecedent is true. It assumes that acting contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings is morally wrong - and that's a matter of judgement.

Actually, it could only "not follow" if God were not, in fact, the Creator of the very things being judged, and the Empowerer of the judgment used rightly to assess them. But He is both. As such, only He can say what a given thing was created for, or created to be, and only His judgments can be perfectly correct in identifying what those things are. That's what makes a things morally right or wrong in the first place: they were constituted as such in His act of purposive creation.

I think maybe you're still thinking ex-post-facto, as if the Creation happened all by itself, and then God had to appear after-the-fact and assess which parts of it are good and evil. That is not the postulate. The postulate is that the very (right) concepts of good and evil are, in fact, derivative of what He has done, and what his judgment tells us about the things He's done when He created them.

The assertion 'incest is morally wrong' is not factual, because it has no truth-value independent from what people believe.

It is factual, because the created nature of sexuality means that the Creator alone can rightly tell us what its original function is. And it will not matter one whit what "people" believe, since nothing they believe actually changes reality or reconstitutes creation itself. Their opinions can be right, or they can be wrong; but they are right or wrong to the extent that they reflect or fail to reflect the original purpose for which things were created.

No, this argument has always been and remains fallacious. The moral rightness or wrongness of an agent and its intentions - are not in the agent's gift. They're not matters of fact. You can define your invented god and its intentions and actions as morally good as persistently as you like. But that doesn't make them morally good - it just means you think and say they are.

Please address the point I made. 'if X is contrary to God's will and purpose for human beings, then X is morally wrong.' I think that's your claim.

Now, suppose X is 'love', 'kindness' or 'forgiveness'. Would you maintain your claim then? (And remember the function of a hypothetical.)