IC please clarify for us

[Immanuel Can]

"Wrong" and "harm" are evaluations done by creatures capable of abstract thinking.

Yes, this is true: such an evaluation would require a mind to exist. Yet we are, presumably, not asked to consider God, or gods, or spiritual beings in the equation, and in the thought-experiment proposed, we're asked to eliminate human beings. So what is the "mind" that could detect or assess such a thing?

And to whom is the "wrong" or "harm" being done, and why, since we are asked to imagine there are no human beings? What are we to imagine in their place? How is whatever takes place determined to be "evil," and by whom?

It's all far too vague to answer, I think. So I think that AJ might just have to jump to the conclusion at which he's aiming, and then build the case backward for us. I can't see how we can know how to answer him, since we can't really make his required presuppositions work.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Again, I don't know how to engage your question. Can you maybe just explain what you're wanting to say? Because the hypothetical and speculative nature of the question seems to me to make any answer ambiguous.

Christian theology is problematic because the concepts are roited in a very different ‘world picture’. And that picture is that ‘the world was good’ until the Fateful Error of the First People. Then, the World was affected, damaged, plagued really, by the consequences of that choice. But that view (in my view) is a child’s view. The world was the world for billions of years and, therefore, “evil” had to have been in it all along.

So, what is “evil”? It is not a shark eating a seal. But when a man kills a man and robs his goods, which is really quite the same when a shark does it (robs the seal’s body and self), we understand it as an evil, and one with consequences (for the soul).

So: evil cannot be said the exist in nature. And evil is only an issue of man’s morality. But what of a tidal wave that annihilates a city? Is that God’s will or simply circumstance? We used to see God’s will in motion, now we cannot.

It changes things to see that ‘evil’ can only be understood in relation to a choice I will make.

Let me know your thoughts in relation to this …

[Gary Childress]

"Wrong" and "harm" are evaluations done by creatures capable of abstract thinking.

Well, there's also the existence of pain and suffering. No creature wants to suffer and be in pain. It's possible that most life forms feel pain. Presumably, if a creature is in pain and suffering, then it is being harmed.

[Immanuel Can]

Again, I don't know how to engage your question. Can you maybe just explain what you're wanting to say? Because the hypothetical and speculative nature of the question seems to me to make any answer ambiguous.

Christian theology is problematic because the concepts are roited in a very different ‘world picture’. And that picture is that ‘the world was good’ until the Fateful Error of the First People. Then, the World was affected, damaged, plagued really, by the consequences of that choice.

Well, it's what we all intuitively recognize, I would say.

After all, every one of us has a profound intuition that "this place should be better." Or, "evil should not exist." Or "why do bad things happen to good people." And so on. We all innately know that the present world is not, in some sense, "right."

But if Naturalism or some such ideology were true, how would it come about that we all intuit this? Would it not be obvious to us that the state of affairs in the material world that we inherit automatically would be the limit of our prospects and the entirety of our deserving? Would we not all be bound to shrug and move onward, knowing that what is, is all there is, all there could be, and all we can ever expect?

But we do not. And we know things should be better. This fact doesn't fit that world-picture.

So, what is “evil”? It is not a shark eating a seal.

Really? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xO-jDyGqys8

Have you ever seen that? It's pretty awful. And something in you is going to feel a sense of tragedy for the poor seal -- and rightly so. Maybe nature itself is also affected by things not being as they should be...and though the shark will probably never intuit that, we certainly do.

So maybe your assumption is a little too quick there.

one with consequences (for the soul).

So now man has a "soul"?

Well, what does this "soul" tell him about what happens to the seal?

Let me know your thoughts in relation to this …

Well, in sum: we can agree that only man is conscious of the nature of evil (so far as we can tell, having never been sharks). But to be conscious of is different from being a participant in.

When my dog bites my neighbour, the dog is not conscious of the wrong he has done. I am. But the dog still bites my neighbour, my neighbour is still bitten, and there was still no justification in my dog having done that to him. If I had trained my dog better, perhaps it wouldn't have happened. Or if I had restrained my dog better, it might not have happened. So my choices and his actions created an undesirable outcome, and only I am conscious of the moral weight of my choices and his actions. The dog doesn't know.

So the shark, perhaps. The shark doesn't know he's harming the seal, though he is. He doesn't accord his action moral weight, because he can't. A shark can't be held responsible for eating that which is food to him, no matter how savage and bloody that is. But if creation itself fell with mankind, then man's choices could still well part of the story of why the shark does what he does. A fallen Creation is going to contain bad and undesirable things of all kinds; and while the shark's (in theory, we have to admit) entirely oblivious to it all, does that entail that I am?

[Immanuel Can]

"Wrong" and "harm" are evaluations done by creatures capable of abstract thinking.

Well, there's also the existence of pain and suffering. No creature wants to suffer and be in pain. It's possible that most life forms feel pain. Presumably, if a creature is in pain and suffering, then it is being harmed.

That's a factual claim, Gary...but it might not be a moral one. That something is "harmed" is an abstract assessment. Somebody has to be capable of making it.

The grains of corn in my burrito are savagely ground up between my teeth. They are "harmed" to the point of being broken down into their constituent elements in my stomach, and absorbed into my system. That's a fact. But where's the moral problem in my eating corn?

What is it about "suffering" that warrants the abstract conclusion that it's "evil" to feel suffering? There's a connecting piece missing from that argument.

[phyllo]

"Wrong" and "harm" are evaluations done by creatures capable of abstract thinking.

Well, there's also the existence of pain and suffering. No creature wants to suffer and be in pain. It's possible that most life forms feel pain. Presumably, if a creature is in pain and suffering, then it is being harmed.

Pain is not bad in itself. It's an alert to stop and deal with something damaging. Sure, you don't need a constant reminder that cancer is in your body when you can't do anything about it. Or your back was damaged years ago.

Sometimes pain is useful and sometimes it's not. That's an evaluation.

"Suffering" is a vague concept. I don't doubt that there are some things that practically everyone would consider to be "suffering". Still, these are thoughts.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Have you ever seen that? It's pretty awful. And something in you is going to feel a sense of tragedy for the poor seal -- and rightly so. Maybe nature itself is also affected by things not being as they should be...and though the shark will probably never intuit that, we certainly do.

This is generally my point: when Nature and natural systems are examined, that situation and necessity (creatures feeding on other creatures in an ecological relationship that cannot change and into which they are locked) is, through and through, the very nature of this world and, by logical extension, all worlds that exist and could exist (in the universe as it is understood).

I agree completely: We human beings have the awareness to see and to mull over these conditions. And we see, with sometimes agonizing clarity, that we too are locked into such systems and we too must act ‘brutally’ in order to maintain ourselves. By brutally I mean in imitation of all creatures that are bound into such material/biological systems. One example: In order for man to cultivate the land, the land must be cleared, prepared and plowed. Man is driven to do so and has no choice. And in the act of clearing and plowing the prior ecological system is destroyed. And man is forced to ‘fight against Nature’ which, inevitably, cannot do else but to try to recover what was taken away.

Nature in the largest sense is unaware of and unconcerned about the nature of itself.

Which brings us back to the problem of ‘evil’ for man. When a man attacks, kills and robs another man on some highroad, we can, from a distance, understand that he is imitating nature. But innour ethical systems we describe that man’s act as ‘evil’. Or take the example of a large nation that turns a smaller one into a vassal. This happens. It is ‘the nature of things’. It goes on now. It is not destined to change because, inevitably this sense, it is inevitable. We cannot escape the System but we wish that we could. So we impose ethical and legal restraints hoping for more ‘justice’, less raw brutality.

[Alexis Jacobi]

So the shark, perhaps. The shark doesn't know he's harming the seal, though he is. He doesn't accord his action moral weight, because he can't. A shark can't be held responsible for eating that which is food to him, no matter how savage and bloody that is.

From an ecological vantage that shark is beyond any doubt ‘doing good’. Just as bats that feed on insects ‘does good’ by keeping the flying insect population within limits. Nature operates within immutable systems that are perfectly, but mindlessly, balanced. What the shark does, what the bat does, cannot (ever) be changed. To change these relationships is, inevitably in fact, to ‘do bad’. Man cannot impose his cultural (or metaphysical) idealism on Nature! He does good if he avoids interfering in Nature. And in some sense he recognizes that because he is (relatively) unrestrained by Nature’s natural controls, that he himself, by existing, becomes harmful to Nature. He actually can idealistically visualize himself as absent. As if he is a plague on natural systems.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Have you ever seen that? It's pretty awful. And something in you is going to feel a sense of tragedy for the poor seal -- and rightly so.

How you see that (shark killing and eating) is very much dependent on the faculty of understanding. If you see it as a biologist and as an ecologist, it is an event to admire, celebrate and respect. But if we impose any artificial (legalistic) framing over it, we will see it as a ‘tragedy’. But it is not. It is actually completely perfect.

The conversation about ‘evil’ turns on the fact that we exist within similar systems that are terrible, but we have this trait of idealism and rebel against the fact that ‘it is’. We wish we could participate in a far less cruel world, but that world is beyond our physical reach. We can only imagine it.

[Immanuel Can]

So the shark, perhaps. The shark doesn't know he's harming the seal, though he is. He doesn't accord his action moral weight, because he can't. A shark can't be held responsible for eating that which is food to him, no matter how savage and bloody that is.

From an ecological vantage that shark is beyond any doubt ‘doing good’.

Well, the shark won't know anything about the good, any more than he'd know about the evil, if either there be. But you and I will.

Man cannot impose his cultural (or metaphysical) idealism on Nature!

Ironic. You say he "cannot," which suggests your own moral prohibition...because factually, he certainly can. How, then, can you "impose" your "cultural or metaphysical idealism" on man?

Do you see the problem? If it's just "cultural and metaphysical idealism," then you must be suggesting that morality is simply not a real thing -- for sharks, or for human beings...unless you can explain why the rules apply to one and not the other.

He does good if he avoids interfering in Nature.

That's another moral claim. How can you impose it?

Nature cannot be "good" unless "good" is an objective reality. It won't be enough to say, "AJ wants to call nature 'good,' " because maybe IC doesn't. Or maybe IC wants to call what the shark does "bad," but AJ doesn't. In the world in which there are no objective moral values, neither AJ nor IC have any actual justification to assert either thing. This problem is only exacerbated if we assert that man himself is simply "part of nature," for it means that the man and the shark are in the same position relative to moral assessments -- namely, that as with all things in nature, no such words apply.

[MikeNovack]

So, what is “evil”? It is not a shark eating a seal. But when a man kills a man and robs his goods, which is really quite the same when a shark does it (robs the seal’s body and self), we understand it as an evil, and one with consequences (for the soul).

Uh ... it is not the same as what the shark did. And we need to specify, did the man kill a man (and take his goods), a man of his own band/group or a stranger. Man is an obligatory social animal. Consequences for the soul,maybe, if souls exist.But consequences for the culture of the band/group, certainly. Cultures lacking a useful set of moral rules, will be at a competitive disadvantage relative to cultures having one, and so will not exist.
<< "evolution" is a more general concept than just biology >>

[Alexis Jacobi]

Uh ... it is not the same as what the shark did. And we need to specify, did the man kill a man (and take his goods), a man of his own band/group or a stranger. Man is an obligatory social animal. Consequences for the soul,maybe, if souls exist.But consequences for the culture of the band/group, certainly. Cultures lacking a useful set of moral rules, will be at a competitive disadvantage relative to cultures having one, and so will not exist.
<< "evolution" is a more general concept than just biology >>

Oh yes, it is exactly what the shark did: a creature using power to gain what another being had gathered and stored (the man in his satchel, the seal in his very body). Now, I agree that man is a social animal, and I agree that man has (or devises) codes of conduct. But the act itself is in the same category. And I do agree that within a band or group there are strict ethical rules that have “adaptive advantages”.

What I am trying to establish is that Nature is a system that cannot ever be revised to accord either a human imagined vision. Nature is going to act according to natural, ecological rules determined by the laws of ecology.

What the issue is for humankind is that we began fully enmeshed in natural systems, non-different from any animals. And for various reasons we developed intricate ethical codes that are similar all around but also have notable differences.

My point is that Christianity (ICs religion) is in its essence (what I refer to as) an imposition of value imperatives that are ‘metaphysical’ to Nature’s laws. They do not exist in Nature though. But I fo not deny ethical strategies among many creatures (wolves, chimpanzees, orcas, etc).

[Alexis Jacobi]

Consequences for the soul, maybe, if souls exist.

Wait, you are talking with a Christian believer (IC). For the (genuine) Christian all his behavior is determined by his assent to metaphysical idealism. Full stop. It does not matter if you share his view in the soul’s existence — he sees ‘the world’ and existence in accord with that metaphysical system, and his object is to impose it. I mean that in the general sense of that word:

[Middle English imposen, from Old French imposer, alteration (influenced by poser, to put, place) of Latin impōnere, to place upon : in-, on; see in-2 + pōnere, to place; see apo- in Indo-European roots.]

Something that is not there (inherent in Nature) is grasped or felt to be real (a revealed ethics and morality) that is imposed, placed, enacted. It derives from metaphysical idealism. Full stop.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, the shark won't know anything about the good, any more than he'd know about the evil, if either there be. But you and I will.

Exactly. But we now know that there is nothing wrong or evil about what that shark does. It is, in fact, a good. If the shark did not do what it does, bad would result.

At one time, I agree, we might have projected tragedy, misfortune or a failure of Providence.

You and I very possibly see different things when we witness the shark ending the existence of that seal and devouring that unit of physical energy.

If you impose some alternative value on the shark/seal relationship, you are acting ‘bad’ (foolishly) to the necessary structures of Nature.

Try to oppose it. You cannot.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Ironic. You say he "cannot," which suggests your own moral prohibition...because factually, he certainly can. How, then, can you "impose" your "cultural or metaphysical idealism" on man?

Yes, I definitely say “cannot” and that’s not because of moral imperative. It is simply understanding Nature and letting it be what it is. Yes, man could intervene and attempt to impose an artificial code, however doing so would be disastrous (in the grand scheme of Nature. Do you now understand?