Religious vs non-religous bases for morality

[MikeNovack]

I really don't understand that. Take the beaver. The beaver "feels bad" when water is running by unrestrained and feels good when flow retarded by a dam.

You consider that a "derivative" feature of the beaver rather than an intrinsic part of the beaver. You want an "objective existence" for :feels bad when water is running freely" and "feels good when water retarded by a dam" separate from the beaver.

Again, I am NOT asking you to abandon your truth as much as just to be able to se the sense of his other description.

And f course, you are right to suspect this has something to do with "secular", but please one step at a time.

[Immanuel Can]

I really don't understand that. Take the beaver. The beaver "feels bad" when water is running by unrestrained and feels good when flow retarded by a dam.

You consider that a "derivative" feature of the beaver rather than an intrinsic part of the beaver.

A "beaver" is a created being. It is what it is, not by its own choice, and it doesn't even understand what it's feeling. It has only an instinct inherent to its own nature, a nature created by something or Someone prior to the beaver. So it's derivative.

You want an "objective existence" for :feels bad when water is running freely" and "feels good when water retarded by a dam" separate from the beaver.

That's a category error, I'm afraid. A "feeling" is not a "thing" as in "an object" or "something with an underived existence of its own." It's a sensation or reaction in a conscious being: philosophers term them "qualia," not "things."

[MikeNovack]

Sorry, but I am talking in terms of how our brains (actually all animal brains) are encoded. Neural nets implementing an associative processor. And we being biological entities, we experience "feelings". These feelings can get associated to other things.

And no, feelings do not exist "on their own". THAT'S PRECISELY THE POINT. You, not I, require independent existence so you can consider "objective". You are correct, this alternative does not have them as objective. YOU are requiring existence in the objective realm, I am not.

But at the moment, we are supposedly considering JUST that this alternative could be explained by some religion (as opposed to a secular explanation). Yes/no? (is it doing that?)

[Immanuel Can]

Sorry, but I am talking in terms of how our brains (actually all animal brains) are encoded.

Let's say our brains were "encoded" to believe in a thing like morality. Would that imply that what they were encoded for is real? No, we might plausibly be encoded to be deluded. In which case, those who overcame the delusion would have a significant strategic and survival advantage over all those who could not see through the delusion; and Nietzsche would be right -- the ubermenschen are the ones who realize there is no such thing as morality.

But at the moment, we are supposedly considering JUST that this alternative could be explained by some religion (as opposed to a secular explanation). Yes/no? (is it doing that?)

No. We are considering all alternatives. And we should begin by eliminating secularism...unless you can show how secularism can provide a basis for morality. If it cannot, then it's not even in the basis-providing "game." It's defeated, right from the start. It cannot do it.

[MikeNovack]

No. We are considering all alternatives. And we should begin by eliminating secularism...unless you can show how secularism can provide a basis for morality. If it cannot, then it's not even in the basis-providing "game." It's defeated, right from the start. It cannot do it.

NOT YET. PREMATURE.

We need first to decide if "an inherent part of humans" is acceptable if that is coming from a religious source.

Look IC, I know you are smart enough to know where I am intending to go with this, which is why you want to jump ahead to "secularism". But I am really going to insist you FIRST rule pout "humans created by a deity with morality a component". Is that not a reasonable religious belief (yes not yours, but people have religions other than yours).

Humans (their brains) receive signals from external stimuli (touch a hot stove => feel pain). But why are you thinking ONLY external signals?

[Immanuel Can]

No. We are considering all alternatives. And we should begin by eliminating secularism...unless you can show how secularism can provide a basis for morality. If it cannot, then it's not even in the basis-providing "game." It's defeated, right from the start. It cannot do it.

NOT YET. PREMATURE.

Not by my reckoning. Rather, I'm perplexed by your refusal to face the consequences for morality of secularism -- perplexed, but not surprised, since I've never found anyone who can explain anything that secularism warrants in the moral realm.

We need first to decide if "an inherent part of humans" is acceptable if that is coming from a religious source.

It's not controversial. Christianity and Judaism have always held that God gave man a conscience. I don't think you've got much to make from that, but if you think you have something important to offer, offer it. I'm listening.

I am really going to insist...

Well, well...go ahead and insist. I have a different view on where the conversation should be. I insist that Secularism, like anybody else, needs to make its own defense. So far, we haven't got anything for it. And I think you know that, because if it did have anything, you'd already have presented it.

Why not simply face the truth, and then we can move on?

[MikeNovack]

] It's not controversial. Christianity and Judaism have always held that God gave man a conscience. I don't think you've got much to make from that, but if you think you have something important to offer, offer it. I'm listening.

Gave?? That's a strange interpretation of the Garden myth. Did you mean by "gave" that God put the tree of moral knowledge in the Garden and so made it possible for us to become human (instead of just "chief animal) by partaking against God's advice? (*)

It is precisely because I wanted a clear expression of "created complete with hoe to be" that I brought in a different religion, LH.

But if you want to consider that your Christianity also has humans created WITH conscience (WITH morality) fine and good. That's really all I really need from you, morality as an integral part of us (as opposed to something off in the realm of "objects")

<< it's not that I don't believe in "objects", i do. But I believe nothing can be an "object" if CLOSELY associated with anything in the realm of "material" >>











(*) In the Jewish view, the "commands" are of different types. Some literal commands but others advisory ("don't do X or bad thing Y will happen")

[Immanuel Can]

] It's not controversial. Christianity and Judaism have always held that God gave man a conscience. I don't think you've got much to make from that, but if you think you have something important to offer, offer it. I'm listening.

Gave?? That's a strange interpretation of the Garden myth.

Let's say "instilled within," or "created man with." We don't need to split hairs here: the idea is very straightforward.

Did you mean by "gave" that God put the tree of moral knowledge in the Garden and so made it possible for us to become human (instead of just "chief animal) by partaking against God's advice? (*)

We ARE human. We're never NOT human. Torah is quite clear on that: there's no special sense in which mankind "became human" only after the Fall. That's a sort of borrowing from post-Sartrean Existentialism, perhaps. It's not related to truth. The truth is that we are born what we are, and can only afterward be shaped or altered by environment.

But you're onto something important, and it's the reason for the existence of the "knowledge of good and evil" test.

Free will can only be had if there are, at minimum, two possibilties: one of doing X, and the other, of doing not-X. If you can only do X, we cannot talk of you having any free will, because you're simply not free to opt out of doing X. You're a robot.

In order that man might be free, he has to have, at minimum, one prohibition...one "not-X" that he is suffered to choose, if he so chooses. He could have more prohibitions...ten...or six hundred and thirteen...or a million. But less than one, and there's no freedom to choose.

Clear, so far?

So if God wished man to be volitionally free -- with all that entails, such as identity, individuality, self-awareness, distinct personhood, the possibility of choice, morality, the possibility of choosing or rejecting relationship with others...all of that, and more -- then there would, analytically, be the necessity of God providing one thing that man could choose to do or not do, and God would not prevent him.

But actions also have consequences. Man could have resisted the temptation. Torah says he did not. He transgressed the one thing which was prohibited to him, and which made his freedom genuine, and made the wrong choice. Consequently, his integrity was violated, his selfhood distorted, his morality confused, his relationship with HaShem severed...

The Torah makes out of this the meaning of sacrifice. By acknowledgement of the moral debt and appeal to the sacrifice of the infinitely valuable, (not just a "spotless" aniimal, but also of a life, which is much more precious) one was signifying faith in the willingness of HaShem to restore the ruptured relationship and take the deserved consequences upon Himself, instead of visiting them upon his creation, his People, the Jews. That's what the whole system of OT sacrifice was about...not about killing sheep, but about appealing to HaShem for a new relationship and for kippur...a covering, an atonement for sin.

In short, man was already created with a moral potential and awareness. And HaShem had already provided the one alternative to make human freedom of choice genuine, along with all its entailments (individuality, selfhood, relationship, etc.) as listed above. But man's full understanding of the alternative he had chosen awaited his experience in the Fall.

That's how Torah tells it.

[MikeNovack]

But you're onto something important, and it's the reason for the existence of the "knowledge of good and evil" test.

Free will can only be had if there are, at minimum, two possibilties: one of doing X, and the other, of doing not-X. If you can only do X, we cannot talk of you having any free will, because you're simply not free to opt out of doing X. You're a robot.

<< no, we are not talking about "free will". The "animal" also chooses, just right/wrong not coming into it >>

But actions also have consequences. Man could have resisted the temptation. Torah says he did not. He transgressed the one thing which was prohibited to him, and which made his freedom genuine, and made the wrong choice. Consequently, his integrity was violated, his selfhood distorted, his morality confused, his relationship with HaShem severed...

<< well now we diverge on our understanding of the myth of the Garden. I understand the Christian interpretation, but that is not how I (or many Jews) interpret the text. For some reason (unclear to me) Christians it is possible to sin BEFORE consuming the fruit. Remember, in this version of the creation of Man, was created WITHOUT knowledge of "good and evil". And look at the text, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
This is a "don't do X because of consequence Y. There are other instances of the 613 that like this that are advice about consequences rather than "orders" >>

That's how Torah tells it.
<< as a Christian understands the text. What you interpret as "the origin of sin" I interpret as the "origin of morality" >>

But in any case, I was offering a DIFFERENT religious account in which humans would not have been created and then acquired knowledge of good and evil but instead would have been created "complete" with all needed to be human (and that includes knowledge of good and evil). The intent here is to see if you will recognize this as a legitimate description of where morality comes from << even if you think it's wrong, wrong/false religion >> In other words, just do you recognize this as a RELIGIOUS basis for "humans always having morality, intrinsic to them".

IF not, why not? With LH is a "wrong/false religion" not an acceptable answer, as somebody neither a Christian nor a LH would have any way to determine which of you had the wrong/false religion. The secularist, of course, thinks you both suffer from delusion.

[Immanuel Can]

What you interpret as "the origin of sin" I interpret as the "origin of morality" >>

Yes, I see. The Serpent does that too, apparently. See Torah, Genesis 3:5.

But in any case, I was offering a DIFFERENT religious account in which humans would not have been created and then acquired knowledge of good and evil but instead would have been created "complete" with all needed to be human (and that includes knowledge of good and evil). The intent here is to see if you will recognize this as a legitimate description of where morality comes from << even if you think it's wrong, wrong/false religion >> In other words, just do you recognize this as a RELIGIOUS basis for "humans always having morality, intrinsic to them".

It would fail Hume's test.

As you know, Hume was no friend of Christians and Jews. But he was a secularist. And he pointed out that (unless morality is somehow encoded into reality itself, which he did not consider) you can't get an "ought" from an "is."

The statement that "human beings are created complete with a knowledge of good and evil" has serious problems, then. Hume and his ilk will not concede to you that human beings are "created" at all, for one thing. But more importantly, given a secular worldview, the fact that they "feel" or "experience" that they want there to be a morality is merely an "is" fact; it doesn't go one step toward proving or even suggesting that what they "feel" is real, true, or possible, far less that they "ought" to follow it.

The secularist, of course, thinks you both suffer from delusion.

Precisely so. He thinks that.

But given his worldview, he cannot explain morality -- and appealing to "well, we all just have this feeling" doesn't show any "oughtness." It doesn't tell us we have any duty, obligation, responsibility, or even advisability or practical advantage in responding in any particular way to the presence of the feeling. It could well be that it's just a foolish compunction we might do better to "get over." How would we know, given secularism?

[MikeNovack]

Yes, I see. The Serpent does that too, apparently. See Torah, Genesis 3:5.
<< the serpent is the wise advisor in Middle Eastern myths --- please note that the serpent is not wrong with the "you will not die" in this version. Neither, of course, was God << just a different meaning to "you will die -- the serpent being literal and God referring to knowledge of mortality >

As you know, Hume was no friend of Christians and Jews. But he was a secularist. And he pointed out that (unless morality is somehow encoded into reality itself, which he did not consider) you can't get an "ought" from an "is."
<< we will come back to this, precise point. Hume did not see how could be "encoded into reality itself" Maybe a modern secularist knows how that encoding could take place >>

The statement that "human beings are created complete with a knowledge of good and evil" has serious problems, then. Hume and his ilk will not concede to you that human beings are "created" at all, for one thing.
<<yes, the secularist of today has a different explanation how humans came to be (as opposed to having been created by a deity. We will get to that. But I haven';t yet seen a clear acceptance from you >>

In the case of a religious explanation "deity created humans with all they needed to be humans (just as created the bear with all needed to be a bear*, a beaver a beaver, etc. And with this (religious) explanation, moral knowledge inherent/part of humans.

And yes of course, IC, once we have this, I am going to bring in the secular argument JUST replacing "humans CREATED with all needed for them to be human" (by some deity) with the secular "humans resulted from EVOLUTION with all needed for them to be human (missing a necessary element means would not have evolved).

* That was perceived as "knowledge"how to be" is clear from the widespread North American myth "The Woman Who Married a Bear". They recognized marriage of people between societies as how cultural knowledge got exchanged. In the case of THIS myth, the failure, what went wrong so that we didn't learn from the bears how to get through the winter without eating.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, I see. The Serpent does that too, apparently. See Torah, Genesis 3:5.

<< the serpent is the wise advisor in Middle Eastern myths --- please note that the serpent is not wrong with the "you will not die" in this version.

Actually, he was lying. Death (entropy) set in immediately. To be cut off from the Source of Life is to be dead.

Dead man walking.

As you know, Hume was no friend of Christians and Jews. But he was a secularist. And he pointed out that (unless morality is somehow encoded into reality itself, which he did not consider) you can't get an "ought" from an "is."
<< we will come back to this, precise point. Hume did not see how could be "encoded into reality itself" Maybe a modern secularist knows how that encoding could take place >>

How? I have never seen it done. But if you can do it, go ahead.

[MikeNovack]

<< the serpent is the wise advisor in Middle Eastern myths --- please note that the serpent is not wrong with the "you will not die" in this version.

Actually, he was lying. Death (entropy) set in immediately. To be cut off from the Source of Life is to be dead.

>>
<< we will come back to this, precise point.>> Hume did not see how could be "encoded into reality itself" Maybe a modern secularist knows how that encoding could take place How? I have never seen it done. But if you can do it, go ahead.

The serpent said "eating the fruit will not cause you to die" TRUE This does not actually contradict God's warning "you will de" (expulsion from the Garden means no access to the "Tree of Life".

Hume was stuck because seeing the human state as strict "is" as opposed to a more modern secularist view which would have humans EVOLVE from the not-human and to eventually else cease to be. Can't get an "ought" from an "is" does not mean co-evolution out of the question.

[Immanuel Can]

<< the serpent is the wise advisor in Middle Eastern myths --- please note that the serpent is not wrong with the "you will not die" in this version.

Actually, he was lying. Death (entropy) set in immediately. To be cut off from the Source of Life is to be dead.

>>
<< we will come back to this, precise point.>> Hume did not see how could be "encoded into reality itself" Maybe a modern secularist knows how that encoding could take place How? I have never seen it done. But if you can do it, go ahead.

The serpent said "eating the fruit will not cause you to die" TRUE

False, actually. Death is much more than the termination of life. All of entropy is a progressive death. It only culminates in final death.

Hume was stuck because seeing the human state as strict "is" as opposed to a more modern secularist view which would have humans EVOLVE from the not-human and to eventually else cease to be.

That's a non-sequitur. "Evolving," if true, is itself merely a "fact," not a "value." It's an (supposed) "is," not an "ought." There is no "duty to evolve" or "moral imperative to evolve." It's just a thing that's supposed to be happening anyway, without any moral import at all.

[MikeNovack]

"Evolving," if true, is itself merely a "fact," not a "value." It's an (supposed) "is," not an "ought." There is no "duty to evolve" or "moral imperative to evolve." It's just a thing that's supposed to be happening anyway, without any moral import at all.

DUTY --- presupposes a deontological point of view of what morality is.

In case you hadn't noticed, I am not in agreement. KNOWING in some situation that X is the right thing to do and Y the wrong thing to do (based on what I have been taught, have learned, how the others of my group of fellow social animals will respond, etc). is not "ought as a duty" in the sense you have.

Would you really describe your first lesson as a duty? (after having learned about "duty" years later). You have a duty to do your "dootie" in that flushing pot rather than taking a dump in the corner of the room?