Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 4:33 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 3:22 pm
Then maybe we need to establish what you mean when you say you want a "principle." For in ordinary language usage, such as I have given would fit the bill; but if you have something different in mind, I should wish to provide it.
A premise from which it is possible to evaluate any moral dictate. In other words; it is not enough to say X is wrong, we also need to know what, exactly, is wrong with X.
I'm just not seeing how my answer doesn't meet that demand. If, as I suggest, "moral" means "conformable to the will and nature of God," then what's wrong with X is it's not "conformable to the will and nature of God." In other words, it presents a lie about the Supreme Being. For man was made, as Genesis says, "in the image of God," meaning that man should bear the reflection of His existence and nature faithfullly, rather than misrepresenting God. And immoral things are a sort of deception, lie or slander against the Creator, implying that He is not what He says He is; because as God's rightful "image bearer," man has the duty to bear faithful witness to the Creator.
You may not accept that that is true, since you don't believe there is a God. But if I'm right, there's nothing I can see wrong with that explanation, and no way it fails to explain adequately what makes X wrong. It just so happens, though, that it depends on ontological suppositions you perhaps don't share with me: but that's been the problem all along -- not our differences about particular actions, but our different assumptions about
the grounds for judging particular actions.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:It is also dependent on belief in God
Don't be surprised. I have been saying that all along. There is no knowledge of morality unless one first gets one's ontology straight. So says the Bible, as well.
Why should I care what the Bible says?
If it's wrong, you shouldn't. If it's telling you the truth, you should.
God exists, and He exists as the whole basis of morality; so to reckon without that fact is actually to obscure the entire field of moral philosophy,
What kind of dreamt-up-out-of-thin-air statement is that supposed to be? What philosophy is involved in simply obeying a commandment?
It's a mistake to think that's what ethics really are.
There is an ethical theory known as "Divine Command Theory." And there are some ideologies and religions that have that view of how ethics should work. They think it's simple: God gives you commands, and those who obey them are good, and those who don't are bad. They think "try harder" is the fundamental ethical obligation, and that a balance of good and evil deeds will ingratiate people to God. In fact, many skeptics and Atheists also believe that that is how Christian theology is arranged, and not surprisingly, they dismiss the whole thing as too simple, too arbitrary and too demanding...possibly even an unwarranted incursion on human freedom, or an impossible list of demands from an angry Creator.
Christians don't think that at all. While there are certainly some commands within Christian theory, they are far from being the core, the essence of the substance of it. They're actually peripheral to the main substance. The substance is the question of one's personal relationship to God, in which the commands are merely signposts toward the relationship. This is all made very explicit, for example, in Galatians 3:23-25.
"...before faith came, we were kept in custody under the Law, being confined for the faith that was destined to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our guardian [the Greek word here literally translates as "tutor" or "child-instructor"] to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian [i.e. an instructor for children]."
So what the Bible says is that following mere "commands" of the Law, even though they are good, is childish. To be mature in the faith is to move beyond that to the actual relationship with God that the commands are designed to "instruct" us to seek and direct us to locate.
That's all theological. I apologize for involving you in it, because I know it's not directly what you're interested in entertaining. But it is impossible to correct your errant supposition about commandments without giving you some reason to think I'm actually reflecting proper Christian belief. So there's your evidence, if you find you want it.
I can see why you are constantly trying to steer the conversation towards attacking the viability of subjective morality.
Well, I'm not sure you can. The reason I'm doing it because unless a person realizes that the house they're living in is on fire, they're unlikely to leave its comforts. And moral subjectivism is such a 'flaming shack' that I can't feel very bad about depriving you of its comforts, if I can thereby give you reason to seek a better shelter.
...your position merely rests on two assertions; there is a God, and he is the source of morality.
Exactly so. It rests on an ontological claim...as all ethics always do. This is what philosophers formally call "the metaethical level" of discourse. It means getting beyond the mere statements about what right and wrong are, and even beyond the mere floating of different theories, to the only grounds upon which one may judge
between and
among ethical theories: their ontological basis.
So I'm performing sound analytical practice, in that. And if you follow me down, then follow me back up, you'll see a remarkable thing: that while
objective morals can be reconciled with particular ontological suppositions, that
subjective ethics cannot be reconciled with any ontological suppositions at all.
And that, if nothing else, should give you a fair and impartial basis to realize you've got to reject moral subjectivism as incoherent. You may not agree with my ontological suppositions, or with my ethical conclusions; but any rational, calm, impartial and logical observer ought to be able to recognize the inherent faults of subjectivism.
