Religious vs non-religous bases for morality

[Gary Childress]

I do not see how "morality" (clearly species specific) could be created as immutable. Could not be independent of the evolutionary process.

That seems like a fair question to me; however, since we cannot be a species other than what we are, is it even possible for us to know the "morality" of any other species (if it were indeed different from ours)? Or could there be some things that are morally true across all species? Or is it possible that other species don't have morals at all, and thus human beings stand out as uniquely special?

For example, is it "moral" for any species to deliberately and completely eradicate another species from the world due to incompatibility with the other species? I mean, I'd like to think that the "screw worm" fly is a prime candidate for removal from the world (via deliberate species elimination by manipulating its gene code to create species-wide deficiencies that would cause the species' extinction).

The "screw worm" fly is an absolute horror to human beings, and it seems to me that the world would be a better place for us humans without those flies at all. But that leaves open the question of whether we would want the same thing done to us were the tables turned, and screw flies were the dominant species. Is it therefore moral of us to do something less extreme than to eliminate them? Or worse yet, what if an advanced alien species visited Earth and decided that we human beings were not compatible with them and therefore they decided to exterminate us? Then what? After we've killed the "screw worm," would it be possible for us to think that the alien species was "morally wrong" to exterminate us? Or do some things fall outside of morality, unable to be reconciled at all with our morality?

[FlashDangerpants]

i do not see how "morality" (clearly species specific) could be created as immutable.

You should try reading some philosophy some day, it will broaden your mind.

With all due respect, the fact that he's here on this website probably means he's read "some" philosophy.

He has absolutely no knowledge of moral philosophy, and is so weak on the subject that even a cheap fraud like IC can bat him around. Worse, he has just resorted to an argument from incredulity - dismissing a large and highly respected body of work in the fields of moral naturalism simply because he lacks the imagination required for it.

You may as well wrap "read" in scare quotes to go with that "some". The most basic skill in this field is that of reading what other people are writing without overwriting their arguments with whatever crap your internal monologue spews on it. It's not an easy skill, many never acquire it, some because they never even try. Mike doesn't have it, or at least it doesn't come naturally to him and he hasn't properly cultivated it yet. I can see from his replies here that his main interest is in broadcasting his own views, and he doesn't seem to really care enough to stop and understand yours. That's a guaranteed recipe for the concoction of dogshit philosophy.

Instead of just dismissing moral naturalism because it doesn't feel familiar to him, he had options. The highest effort one would be to find out what moral naturalism is, how it works and form a reasonable response to it, showing why it fails. The least effort option would be to stick a pin in that and move on without covering it, but recognising there's something unaccounted for in his blind spot, and accepting that this is grounds for caution regarding his own theory. The crappiest option is to just not like it so it must be shit.

[Gary Childress]

You should try reading some philosophy some day, it will broaden your mind.

With all due respect, the fact that he's here on this website probably means he's read "some" philosophy.

He has absolutely no knowledge of moral philosophy, and is so weak on the subject that even a cheap fraud like IC can bat him around. Worse, he has just resorted to an argument from incredulity - dismissing a large and highly respected body of work in the fields of moral naturalism simply because he lacks the imagination required for it.

You may as well wrap "read" in scare quotes to go with that "some". The most basic skill in this field is that of reading what other people are writing without overwriting their arguments with whatever crap your internal monologue spews on it. It's not an easy skill, many never acquire it, some because they never even try. Mike doesn't have it, or at least it doesn't come naturally to him and he hasn't properly cultivated it yet. I can see from his replies here that his main interest is in broadcasting his own views, and he doesn't seem to really care enough to stop and understand yours. That's a guaranteed recipe for the concoction of dogshit philosophy.

Instead of just dismissing moral naturalism because it doesn't feel familiar to him, he had options. The highest effort one would be to find out what moral naturalism is, how it works and form a reasonable response to it, showing why it fails. The least effort option would be to stick a pin in that and move on without covering it, but recognising there's something unaccounted for in his blind spot, and accepting that this is grounds for caution regarding his own theory. The crappiest option is to just not like it so it must be shit.

My bad.

[MikeNovack]

i do not see how "morality" (clearly species specific) could be created as immutable.

You should try reading some philosophy some day, it will broaden your mind.

I think I made the context perfectly clear. Immutable/eternal morality FOR MAN possible if MAN ordained to exist as MAN existd. But if that were not so, if we humans didn't have to evolve as we did, could have evolved as somewhat different critters, would no longer "match". Morality for humans is not morality for bonobos.

Go back seven million years when the last common ancestor of Pan/Homo walked the Earth. Immutable/eternal HUMAN morality would not have fit that critter. It would have needed LCA morality. Eternal moralities before there were any obligatory social animals? Immutable once there were obligatory social animals but no determination how they would evolve?

Yes I understand, many philosophers have take the position morality eternal/immutable BUT were they not also considering creation determined? Saying, well here we are, we humans are here, there must be eternal/immutable morality for us -- we couldn't have evolved to be other than what we are. Can we commit to that? That's how we understand evolution, determined outcome? Understand, we wouldn't not have had to have evolved very differently for that presumed eternal/immutable morality for man to be wrong/bad fit << we are actually very close to the chimps and the bonobos >>

PS -- I am still not in secular mode. I simply see no reason to assume a divine creator HAD to intend a fully determined creation.

[Gary Childress]

i do not see how "morality" (clearly species specific) could be created as immutable.

You should try reading some philosophy some day, it will broaden your mind.

I think I made the context perfectly clear. Immutable/eternal morality FOR MAN possible if MAN ordained to exist as MAN existd. But if that were not so, if we humans didn't have to evolve as we did, could have evolved as somewhat different critters, would no longer "match". Morality for humans is not morality for bonobos.

Go back seven million years when the last common ancestor of Pan/Homo walked the Earth. Immutable/eternal HUMAN morality would not have fit that critter. It would have needed LCA morality. Eternal moralities before there were any obligatory social animals? Immutable once there were obligatory social animals but no determination how they would evolve?

Yes I understand, many philosophers have take the position morality eternal/immutable BUT were they not also considering creation determined? Saying, well here we are, we humans are here, there must be eternal/immutable morality for us -- we couldn't have evolved to be other than what we are. Can we commit to that? That's how we understand evolution, determined outcome? Understand, we wouldn't not have had to have evolved very differently for that presumed eternal/immutable morality for man to be wrong/bad fit << we are actually very close to the chimps and the bonobos >>

PS -- I am still not in secular mode. I simply see no reason to assume a divine creator HAD to intend a fully determined creation.

So you believe there must be a God in order for there to be morality, is that correct? If there is no God, then anything goes. Is that the case as you understand it?

[FlashDangerpants]

i do not see how "morality" (clearly species specific) could be created as immutable.

You should try reading some philosophy some day, it will broaden your mind.

I think I made the context perfectly clear. Immutable/eternal morality FOR MAN possible if MAN ordained to exist as MAN existd. But if that were not so, if we humans didn't have to evolve as we did, could have evolved as somewhat different critters, would no longer "match". Morality for humans is not morality for bonobos.

Go back seven million years when the last common ancestor of Pan/Homo walked the Earth. Immutable/eternal HUMAN morality would not have fit that critter. It would have needed LCA morality. Eternal moralities before there were any obligatory social animals? Immutable once there were obligatory social animals but no determination how they would evolve?

Yes I understand, many philosophers have take the position morality eternal/immutable BUT were they not also considering creation determined? Saying, well here we are, we humans are here, there must be eternal/immutable morality for us -- we couldn't have evolved to be other than what we are. Can we commit to that? That's how we understand evolution, determined outcome? Understand, we wouldn't not have had to have evolved very differently for that presumed eternal/immutable morality for man to be wrong/bad fit << we are actually very close to the chimps and the bonobos >>

PS -- I am still not in secular mode. I simply see no reason to assume a divine creator HAD to intend a fully determined creation.

The context is indeed clear. You are a blundering oaf with not a jot of interest in what other people argue.

But as everybody knows, I am a man of solutions not some mere finger-pointing fingerist. I have found a Youtube video with a debate featuring philosophy youtuber @kaneb who is broadly in line with my way of thinking on these matters, and Professor Russ Shafer-Landau who is one of the more famous living philosophers doing moral realism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xiqicM73Wk which is not to say he is in line with any moral realist on this forum, none of them is sophisticated enough for that.

It's about an hour and a quarter long, with an unfortunate section at the start in which RSL tries to sell a redundant new theory of "data" from some book he was selling at the time, and Kane struggles to find out what the point of this nonsense is, but should have just skipped over it once he realised it was garnish with no flavour. Before that though is an intro where the host explains in very brief terms how the main questions of moral philosophy beak down. And after the iffy bit about data they get to a famous modern evolutionary argument, which is absolutely nothing like yours.

You should watch the video, because if you watch and pay attention and don't sit there just seething about your own obviously superior argument, seeing instead what you can glean for your own future purposes from their methods and arguments, you will improve. And before you waste your umbrage on me, I am definitely in a position to tell you that. It is not at all arrogant on my part to tell you that you are bad at moral philosophy.

[MikeNovack]

You should watch the video, because if you watch and pay attention and don't sit there just seething about your own obviously superior argument, seeing instead what you can glean for your own future purposes from their methods and arguments, you will improve. And before you waste your umbrage on me, I am definitely in a position to tell you that. It is not at all arrogant on my part to tell you that you are bad at moral philosophy.

My objection to the eternal/immutable "object" is not confined to,moral philosophy, but a more general argument.

Take the axioms/postulates of geometry NOT INCLUDING a parallel postulate. That is a well defined subset of geometry. I would accept that the theorems are eternal/immutable. Now let us consider adding a parallel postulate. We will add one of the three possible (none, one, more than one) dependent on the result of the roll of a die, 1 or 2 => none, 3 or 4 => one, and 5 or 6 => more than one.

What could possibly be the eternal/immutable truth of the theorems of this geometry BEFORE THAT DIE IS ROLLED? Understand, less talking abut moral truths than the truth of whether Schrodinger's cat is dead or alive (before the box is opened and we look)

I am arguing that humans ever coming into existence and with the properties that we have was a CHANCE EVENT.

I do not think that many in moral philosophy would be willing to treat eternal/immutable truth as a probability function as some in physics are willing to treat the truth of the cat's status.

[MikeNovack]

PS: If you want to argue that the situation is different (with morality) than those examples from math and physics.

Some seven million years ago lived the last common ancestor (LCA) of chimps, bonobos, and us. If you believe human morality is an eternal/immutable objective truth than it must have been true back then, say during the childhood of that LCA. Just as it would be an eternal/immutable truth now, seven million years later.

So here we are, seven million years later, except before that LCA grew up and reproduced, a leopard jumped form a branch above and killed him/her. So there are no, never were any chimps, bonobos, or humans. And maybe never will be.

USUALLY when people say they believe in eternal/immutable objective truth they mean "eternal" to mean into the past as well as the future. But what do we mean when that past is before some conditional event? Are they also in effect denying that events can be conditional? (I imagine some are -- for example "all has been pre-determined by a god's will").

But note, just believing in a god creating everything not enough. Would also be believing that this god CHOSE creation to be pre-determined.

[FlashDangerpants]

Two swings, two misses. Still you have not bothered to even learn the slightest thing about what you fool yourself you are arguing against. All so you can try to railroad me over something I wrote that wasn't even remotely about you.

[Impenitent]

250 million years ago, God gave morality to the dinosaurs

for millions of years, T-Rex went around strutting his stuff

eventually, God got tired of these sinful beasts, and He hit them in the head with a rock (meteoroid)

-Imp

[MikeNovack]

Two swings, two misses. Still you have not bothered to even learn the slightest thing about what you fool yourself you are arguing against. All so you can try to railroad me over something I wrote that wasn't even remotely about you.

Do you believe that we humans are/have been immutable over time? Especially our culture(s) which change/mutate far faster than we do biologically?

I believe that human morality must always be in synch with us, biologically and culturally. But since our biology has changed siginficantly since the LCA of us, chimps, and bonobos seven million years ago, and our culture(s) changing much more rapidly, what could it mean to consider human morality "immutable" << because chimps retain the usual mammalian link between mating and estrus while both we humans and bonobos have not, though using different de-link mechanisms, presumably the LCA was more like chimps in this regard --- in other words, our morality had to be very different at the star.

[FlashDangerpants]

Two swings, two misses. Still you have not bothered to even learn the slightest thing about what you fool yourself you are arguing against. All so you can try to railroad me over something I wrote that wasn't even remotely about you.

Do you believe that we humans are/have been immutable over time? Especially our culture(s) which change/mutate far faster than we do biologically?

I drew your attention to some theories that do exist. That's it. Everything else in this conversation has just been you oafishly blundering. That shit there is nothing to do with anything I have raised and I have no interest in it.