Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 4:20 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 8:23 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:25 pm
Then, as I asked, specify that burden, so it can be met.
No.
Then there can be only one conclusion: there is no amount or kind of evidence you will accept. You can't even say what evidence would look like. It's the only conclusion you invite there.
No. Here's the rest of my comment again - which for some strange reason you failed to quote or address:
No. If you claim 'God is good', that this assertion ascribes a property to God as a matter of fact - that 'God is good' is a true factual assertion - then yours is the burden of proof. And, as I said, if you can't or don't even know how to meet that burden of proof, the rest of us can draw our conclusions.
As everyone can see, my 'no' didn't mean what you claim - that 'there is no amount or kind of evidence that I will accept' and that i 'can't even say what evidence would look like'. Those are both lies, and your dishonest representation of what I said speaks volumes.
This assumes there is a 'conception' of 'good' that is objective - which is the moot point -
I think you mean "contested point."
The moot point is the matter at issue.
... and that that conception has an origin, which is a god. And these are all claims with no justification whatsoever. It amounts to this: 'morality is objective because the origin of the objective conception of 'good' is the character of God'.
Well, now you've begged the question. You say "there is no justification," but won't even say what a "justification" would look like.
No. I'm not assuming a conclusion in a premise. You do that in your explanation as to why morality is objective.
A definition has no truth-value. It's a stipulation, not a truth-claim.
I disagree. A definition can be judged as to its quality by way of the level to which it reflects the facts. So it does indeed have truth value. If it has none, it's worse than "stipulative": it's actually wrong.
You don't understand the basics here. A definition of a term has no truth-value. If you mean a description of a thing, such as a god, then if it's factual, it does have a truth-value.
But I note that you don't address my objection regarding subjectivism. I had written it as follows:
However, subjectivism has a huge problem with that: it has no "leader" at all for its "parade." It wants to use the word "good," but cannot refer that word to anything at all. It's a "parade" with nothing at all at the head, and thus without content in its use of the word, since it refers to precisely no real quality at all.
It's as if you believe that if you can keep generating objections to objectivism, then subjectivism is going to win automatically. But even if you were right, it won't: what it will leave is TWO theories we can't trust -- objectivism, because you won't specify any "justification" for it, so it cannot be "justified to you by anyone," and subjectivism, because it has no basis for grounding any moral judgments at all.
The exact opposite is what has actually been happening: you can't demonstrate the objectivity of morality, so you try to distract attention from your failure by attacking moral subjectivism with the specious and ridiculous argument that, if moral assertions are subjective, they can't be objective - which means they have no basis or foundation. And you've been peddling this pathetic line since our very first exchanges.
So so far, your argument is not an argument for subjectivism. It's an argument for amorality, or more truthfully, for moral nihilism. No more.
Negating arguments can only take us so far as Nihilism. At some point, you have to produce credentials for subjectivism, or give it up, too.
Rubbish. When we recognise that moral assertions aren't objective - that there are no moral facts - then we can see our actual moral predicament clearly and rationally.
But your 'reference' for the word 'good' is 'consonance with God's character' - which, as you agree, tells us absolutely nothing about either God's character or what constitutes good' or 'the good'.
No, I don't agree to that. I never agreed to that. I call, "straw man."
I can't be bothered to find the place where you accepted this. But never mind, because it's true. The claim 'the good is consonance with God's character' actually tells us nothing about what constitutes the good, or God's character. That you think it does, again, speaks volumes.
I have been arguing that God is the prototype, so to speak, the paragon, the "first in the parade" of things we can rightly, objectively identify as "good." Not that we cannot know anything about good. Rather, our concept of God as good is, in our experience, drawn by way of two things: one is comparison to that we know as good in the world, and the second is revelation, which clarifies what ultimate goodness looks like. So we have a lot of knowledge about objective goodness, and about why it applies as a predicate of God.
And this argument is unsound, because your premises are unjustified. If you formulate it syllogistically, we'll all see how it fails. I'll leave that up to you.
By contrast, we subjectivists have rational, evolved and evolving moral arguments, to do with the advantages of reciprocity, and so on, for each individual - with widening and developing scope.
You've got zippo. You don't know if reciprocity is "good" or not, nor what is "good for each individual." What you know is only what the subjective person happens to fancy at a given moment...no more. You've already, rightly, rejected the Neo-Platonic idea of goodness...well, that leaves you with nothing at all.
Pay attention. You could try re-reading my OP. You haven't shown there's anything to be 'known'. You merely assume there is, which begs the question.
You define your invented god as good. And yet you say humans are fallible.
Of course. That's routine and demonstrable. If good is objective, it is not necessarily the case that every human being always has the right concept of the good at all times. Human beings are fallible.
So there could be moral features of reality and moral facts that fallible humans don't know about or recognise. And you claim there are - that there is such a thing as good. Okay - prove it.
It's like the Aristotelian concept of anatomy -- when all the "doctors" believed in the four humours, did that make Aristotelian medicine true? Of course not. Did it mean Aristotelians were not capable of learning better? Apparently not. Apparently, human physiology was what it was, whether any of them knew it or not.
And we found out the truth - the facts of the matter.
The meeting of the burden of proof is with the claimant. The specifying of the burden of proof is with the objector. If no "burden" is specified, then the fact that it "is not met" is not the claimant's fault...it's the objectors. There literally is no "burden" that he will allow would be convincing.
No, no and no. Claimant: 'X is the case'. Response: 'Prove it'. Claimant: 'How?' Response: 'I don't know. It's your claim. Why do you believe it?' Claimant: 'No, it's up to you to show how I can prove it. Not my problem.'
I've told you exactly why I believe it. You insist you still don't. So all I'm asking you is, "Where is the bar?" What would it take to convince you of what you say you don't believe? In other words, what would it take to falsify your skepticism?
And you can't find anything that would do that. What does that tell you?
Not rational. You can't "judge" that for which no objective standards exist, and as a subjectivist, you have to believe they don't.
Not even subjectivist. It can't be rational to add "any half-decent person," however many epithets you may string together, because you're transgressing subjectivism, by invoking universal duty for all "half-decent persons," as you call them. But on the basis of what non-universal principle would you get to dictate to all "half-decent persons"?
Again, you can say no more than "Peter hates God." To say more, you need to invoke moral objectivism.
So is that where your claim ends?
Let me explain this once again, and perhaps this time you'll grasp the nub of it.
When I say 'your invented god is immoral', I'm not making a factual claim, with an independent truth-value, that therefore incurs a burden of proof. Instead, I'm expressing a moral judgement, just as you are when you say 'my 'God is good'.
Not "just as." Very differently, in fact.
For I, at least, have
a basis for making such a judgment -- or, if you prefer to believe this way, that I "think" I do, even if you continue to deny I'm right about it. But you don't so much as "think" you do.
If subjectivism is true, then by your own account, your value judgment can mean nothing stronger than "Peter doesn't happen to like (right now)..."
At least my view
potentially could be objectively true, if as I suggest, "good" can be grounded in the character and will of God -- yours has not a
ghost of a chance of being anything more than the aforesaid. At least, not on the basis of anything you've provided to show otherwise, so far.
But I'm happy to be contradicted on that: go ahead -- what's the full import of your subjective claim to God's "immorality," that
exceeds your personal opinion of the moment yet
invokes no objective standard?
Addressed and dismissed already as specious.
