Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 1:37 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 12:02 am
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 10:39 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 9:49 pm
If that were the case, then secularism would be able to do the same job in respect to morality as religions can; namely, to ground some moral claim, and ideally, a whole bunch of moral claims, so a society can form using it. Let's see if it can.
So what is one moral claim/axiom/duty/demand/commandment/requirement or whatever that secularism places on every secularist? If you can give even one, you've got a case on that.
Even religion gets some things right: " Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
What, according to secularism, makes that rule "good" or "right"?

There is no source of meaning, understanding, or judgment other than through our common biology.
What moral does "biology" instruct to us?

The biological commandment is security/survival and the well-being of the group/gang/pack of society's individuals.[/quote]

So...extinction is immoral, and survival (or is it security) is supposedly moral? Let's test that.
Please explain how we get this out of biology. I've been told that the biological view is supposed to be "survival of the fittest," not "survival of the moral," but maybe you can fill in this story. It also seems to me that extinctions happen all the time, without implicating any morality at all, and survival happens, but also doesn't implicate morality. So, for example, the COVID virus survives, and the great auk is extinct. What makes the COVID virus's behaviour moral, and the great auk's not moral?
[/quote]

Extinction is amoral, meaning it is beyond the control of biology itself, like most things in the world; extinction just is. Biological consciousness gives all things meaning; extinction is governed by the physical world. In isolation, morality is meaningless; it would be nonsense, as morality is about the welfare of the individuals in a group/society. Biological behaviours have some commonality across the board. The drive for survival is what introduces the need for morality, perhaps on a microscopic level, for a virus among viruses, it is moral to survive. It would follow life's patterns. The first directive of life is to survive and reproduce. I believe that applies to all life forms. For humanity, that which supports life is moral, and that which undermines the continued existence of life is immoral; this is otherwise known as good or bad, sin, and being good.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 1:51 am**

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:37 am
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:37 am

The biological commandment is security/survival and the well-being of the group/gang/pack of society's individuals.
So...extinction is immoral, and survival (or is it security) is supposedly moral? Let's test that.
Please explain how we get this out of biology. I've been told that the biological view is supposed to be "survival of the fittest," not "survival of the moral," but maybe you can fill in this story. It also seems to me that extinctions happen all the time, without implicating any morality at all, and survival happens, but also doesn't implicate morality. So, for example, the COVID virus survives, and the great auk is extinct. What makes the COVID virus's behaviour moral, and the great auk's not moral?
Extinction is amoral, meaning it is beyond the control of biology itself, like most things in the world; extinction just is.

Okay, then biology isn't morally instructing us that we have any duty to survive, anymore than the great auk or the COVID virus did.

Biological consciousness gives all things meaning;

How? What is it about consciousness that "gives things meaning"? Do you mean anything more than, human beings imagine things have meaning? Then it's not biology that's telling us anything, it's humans...and they're deluding themselves, unless objective meaning exists.

In isolation, morality is meaningless;

We agree about that.

Biological behaviours have some commonality across the board.

That doesn't show that the behaviours are moral: they include predation, violence and such.

The drive for survival is what introduces the need for morality,

Well, that's not at all clear. But it's even less clear that our felt "need" means that we can have whatever it is we think we "need." To be sure, I'm confident the great auk would have preferred to live; but they didn't get to.

I don't doubt that human beings feel the need for meaning. But they can't have it in a merely "biological" world, because there are no objective duties at all in such a place, nobody in charge, no moral direction to the whole, and no such thing as objective moral truths.

it is moral to survive.

In a world said to "progress" through "survival of the fittest"? Surely not. Some things will survive, and some will go extinct, and it will just be "survival of the fittest." Morality doesn't even enter into that equation, so far as I can see. If it does, you'll have to show where; it's not obvious.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 2:37 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:31 pm
ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:23 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:15 am

I don't share that view either and neither do all secularists. I'm not convinced that morality can't be understood by secularism. I think you're creating a very shallow and unfair interpretation of secularism.
In my experience, since Christianity is built upon a foundation of sand, Christian apologists routinely create straw men, present double standards, etc. A never-ending parade of logical fallacies often capped by willful ignorance. If it were built on truth (a solid foundation), this would not be the case.
That's a significant allegation. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a few cases where it holds true. But do you have any reason to suppose that the Christian case itself is like that, or are you only speaking about the fallibilities of a few human souls?

But let’s play along with that. Let’s pretend that not only are a few people of your acquaintance such hypocrites, but that no Christian could possibly explain why morality exists. We’ll pretend, even though it’s not true.

How would that help secularism?

That is, even if every Hindu, Islamist, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and every pagan of every kind, along with every Christian, were all incapable of grounding any morality. Would that imply that secularism could?

Evidently not. So secularism its own moral burden to meet, as is indicated by the OP. And it’s to that that our attention should be given, since no failure of any other system changes even one iota the problem for secularism.

That's a significant allegation. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a few cases where it holds true. But do you have any reason to suppose that the Christian case itself is like that, or are you only speaking about the fallibilities of a few human souls?

In my experience it is largely true: especially when it comes to Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christians; especially after they have painted themselves into a corner. This includes you, by the way. See the following as examples. Your additional comments have nothing to do with what I posted to Gary. They do not logically follow. It's so bizarre so as to boggle the mind.

But let’s play along with that. Let’s pretend that not only are a few people of your acquaintance such hypocrites, but that no Christian could possibly explain why morality exists. We’ll pretend, even though it’s not true.

How would that help secularism?

My post wasn't trying to "help secularism". You've gone off on an illogical tangent.

That is, even if every Hindu, Islamist, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and every pagan of every kind, along with every Christian, were all incapable of grounding any morality. Would that imply that secularism could? Evidently not.

My post wasn't trying to "imply that secularism could". You've continued on your illogical tangent.

So secularism its own moral burden to meet, as is indicated by the OP. And it’s to that that our attention should be given, since no failure of any other system changes even one iota the problem for secularism.

You've further continued on your illogical tangent.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 2:46 am**

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 2:37 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:31 pm
ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:23 am

In my experience, since Christianity is built upon a foundation of sand, Christian apologists routinely create straw men, present double standards, etc. A never-ending parade of logical fallacies often capped by willful ignorance. If it were built on truth (a solid foundation), this would not be the case.
That's a significant allegation. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a few cases where it holds true. But do you have any reason to suppose that the Christian case itself is like that, or are you only speaking about the fallibilities of a few human souls?

But let’s play along with that. Let’s pretend that not only are a few people of your acquaintance such hypocrites, but that no Christian could possibly explain why morality exists. We’ll pretend, even though it’s not true.

How would that help secularism?

That is, even if every Hindu, Islamist, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and every pagan of every kind, along with every Christian, were all incapable of grounding any morality. Would that imply that secularism could?

Evidently not. So secularism its own moral burden to meet, as is indicated by the OP. And it’s to that that our attention should be given, since no failure of any other system changes even one iota the problem for secularism.
That's a significant allegation. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a few cases where it holds true. But do you have any reason to suppose that the Christian case itself is like that, or are you only speaking about the fallibilities of a few human souls?

In my experience it is largely true: especially when it comes to Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christians

I think you need to get out more, then. I've found things quite the opposite. So has Western civilization, historically.

But let’s play along with that. Let’s pretend that not only are a few people of your acquaintance such hypocrites, but that no Christian could possibly explain why morality exists. We’ll pretend, even though it’s not true.

How would that help secularism?

My post wasn't trying to "help secularism".

But that's what this thread is all about. Look at the heading. It's not about religion, it's about what happens to secularists with regard to morality.

Maybe it wasn't me who was off topic. But we can get back on. Do you have anything to offer about the actual subject of the thread?

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 6:29 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:51 am
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:37 am

So...extinction is immoral, and survival (or is it security) is supposedly moral? Let's test that.
Please explain how we get this out of biology. I've been told that the biological view is supposed to be "survival of the fittest," not "survival of the moral," but maybe you can fill in this story. It also seems to me that extinctions happen all the time, without implicating any morality at all, and survival happens, but also doesn't implicate morality. So, for example, the COVID virus survives, and the great auk is extinct. What makes the COVID virus's behaviour moral, and the great auk's not moral?
Extinction is amoral, meaning it is beyond the control of biology itself, like most things in the world; extinction just is.
Okay, then biology isn't morally instructing us that we have any duty to survive, any more than the great auk or the COVID virus did.

The instructions to survive and reproduce are in your genetic make-up. Compassion for others arises through recognition of the self, which is you is in others. No identification with, no compassion, no morality, and no society. You need to wrap your mind around the fact that biology/you are the measure and the meaning of all things. The meanings and value judgments of the past were created by your ancestors out of what they were, with the knowledge of the world that was their reality at that time. Sexuality is involuntary in that it is not an intellectual decision but something that takes you and is the will of the species. Morality is a social construct using the innate tendency to identify with others as its foundation. You speak of extinction as proof that biology is not morally instructive; it is like saying biology is not morally instructive about the weather.

Biological consciousness gives all things meaning;

How? What is it about consciousness that "gives things meaning"? Do you mean anything more than human beings imagine things have meaning? Then it's not biology that's telling us anything, it's humans...and they're deluding themselves, unless objective meaning exists.

One acquires meaning from the physical world in that its energy forms alter one's standing biology, that alteration is experience, the judgment of that experience is the meaning you then attribute to the physical world. You need to know that you do not experience what is out there; you experience how what is out there alters your biology. Apparent reality, your everyday reality is a biological readout. It is as if the energies of the earth and cosmos play biology as an instrument, and the melody it plays on that instrument is your everyday reality. All organisms are the centre of the universe in a sense, each having, according to species, a differing apparent reality, a different everyday reality. What most people call their objective reality, the objective world, is a subjective experience. There is no way to know if our objective world even exists in the absence of biological consciousness.

In isolation, morality is meaningless;[/quote]
We agree about that.

Biological behaviours have some commonality across the board.

That doesn't show that the behaviours are moral: they include predation, violence, and such.

The drive for survival is what introduces the need for morality,

Well, that's not at all clear. But it's even less clear that our felt "need" means that we can have whatever it is we think we "need." To be sure, I'm confident the great auk would have preferred to live; but they didn't get to.

I don't doubt that human beings feel the need for meaning. But they can't have it in a merely "biological" world, because there are no objective duties at all in such a place, nobody in charge, no moral direction to the whole, and no such thing as objective moral truths. [/quote]

This is very true, we are on our own. The main thing to remember is that we, life, and biology are the creators of all meanings, the measures and meanings of all things. It is a lonely thought, all we really have is each other.

it is moral to survive.

In a world said to "progress" through "survival of the fittest"? Surely not. Some things will survive, and some will go extinct, and it will just be "survival of the fittest." Morality doesn't even enter into that equation, so far as I can see. If it does, you'll have to show where; it's not obvious.
[/quote]

There is no morality to physical nature, it is a matter of life lives upon life, until life comes together in groups, packs, or societies in the recognition of a common plight, a common self struggle in nature to survive.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 1:48 pm**

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 6:29 am One acquires meaning from the physical world in that its energy forms alter one's standing biology, that alteration is experience, the judgment of that experience is the meaning you then attribute to the physical world.

We acquire delusions of meaning, you mean? Because you're saying there isn't any objective and inherent meaning in "the physical world," are you not? So whatever we imagine is unreal, then.

But I'm not seeing the connection between these delusions and morality; except that it means that morality, too, must be an imaginary, made-up thing, not a reality. Which means, as the original poster suggests, that they end up "constructing another belief system" to support an unreal meaning and an unreal morality.

And that would be your answer?

There is no morality to physical nature, it is a matter of life lives upon life, until life comes together in groups, packs, or societies in the recognition of a common plight, a common self struggle in nature to survive.

Now you've got the truth. "There is no morality to physical nature." Right. In a secular world, that has to be the case, because any access to belief in an objective purpose or moral structure to reality has to be denied.

But we humans can't live and function without a sense of meaning and a morality. Trying to do that fills us with angst and confusion, because we can't decide what's worth doing...nothing has any inherent meaning...and we can't construct societies or even common projects without moral agreements...so then, our society as secularists, has to "construct" for us something false in order to fulfill the function of those missing elements...just as the OP says.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 2:42 pm**

IC:
First I must apologise for misstating my argument in the first place. I should always have said ‘unpleasantness’. not ‘pain’. I was working on the incorrect assumption that the discussion would be easier if I used the commonly employed philosophical term ‘pain’, but this has turned out not to be the case.

I also used the word ‘dislikeability’ in my argument. This again is not precise. The point is not that unpleasantness is dislikeable (i.e. easy to dislike) , the point is that it is such that the experiencer cannot help disliking it. You may like an unpleasant experience for other reasons, but you can’t help disliking the unpleasantness itself. I shall therefore change 'dislikeability' to 'being unavoidably disliked'.

I am also making a slight modification to the meaning of 'bad'. I now think that there is no reference to properties of X when we say 'X is bad'. Rather, it is the case that the possession of properties which provide sufficient reason to give an anti-response to X justifies calling X 'bad'.

Here is my argument in its amended form (please bear in mind that it is not always possible to get an argument right first time):

1. 'X is bad' means 'X provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response to X'.
(In saying 'X is bad', we are both giving an anti-response to X, and at the same time claiming that X merits the anti-response, i.e. provides sufficient reason for us to give the anti-response. For this to be true, it must be the case that X has properties which provide sufficient reason for the anti-response.)
2. Unpleasantness provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response (namely, dislike) to unpleasantness. (Unpleasantness has a property, namely being unavoidably disliked, which provides this reason.)
3. Therefore unpleasantness is bad.
4. Therefore, other things being equal, an action which causes unpleasantness is bad.
5. (On the assumption that there is free will) an agent is morally responsible for an action performed intentionally and knowingly.
6. Therefore an agent intentionally and knowingly causing unpleasantness is morally responsible for causing the unpleasantness.
7. Therefore an agent intentionally and knowingly causing unpleasantness is morally responsible for performing a bad action.
8. Therefore (other things being equal) it is morally bad to intentionally and knowingly cause unpleasantness.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 5:33 am
CIN2 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 11:46 pm I'm not claiming that pain and bad are the same thing (i.e. numerically identical). I claim that badness is necessarily a property of pain (in the sense in which philosophers usually use the word 'pain'). Let me put this as accurately as I can. By 'pain' I mean any experience that is subjectively unpleasant.
That's obviously not the case either. Giving birth is subjectively unpleasant and painful, and yet is the most cherished experience of many women, and one they insist it associated with good, not "badness." Exercise is both painful and healthy, and is highly recommended and freely practiced by athletes, who insist it's "good" for them...and so on.

I am not claiming that any experience which includes pain is a bad experience. I am claiming that the pain itself (or, more accurately, the unpleasantness of the pain) is bad. This does not preclude the experience as a whole from being good.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 5:33 am The complications of things like "the pleasure principle" and "the hedonic calculus" have been well-documented and abundantly repeated. It seems tiresome to me to repeat them now, since they're so widely available in the literature. I'm hopeful you've got some acquaintance with them yourself, or will invest the time to do so.

Well, I’m sorry, but tiresome or not, the burden of proof here is on you. If you are claiming, as you seem to be, that my argument for hedonism has already been refuted, either directly or by implication, then you must at the very least provide references to such refutations. I am not aware of any such refutations. Supposed refutations of hedonism usually amount to no more than claims that the hedonist has overlooked other supposed basic goods, such as freedom and justice. These supposed refutations generally fail because no argument or evidence is provided to support the contention that these are basic goods.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am ...in reality, it is quite impossible to isolate out and decontextualize "pain" in the way you're suggesting we ought to do.

The entire history of anaesthetics refutes this. The reason humans have been able to develop anaesthetics is, precisely, that we have been able to conceive of the pain of surgery, and specifically the unpleasantness of pain, and thereby conceive of the idea of something that would remove the unpleasantness of pain while allowing the surgery to continue.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am And if we do, we find that we lack the necessary surrounding circumstances to make any moral assessment at all of the situation in hand.

Here you are simply assuming that no moral assessment can be made on the basis of the unpleasantness alone. My argument refutes this assumption.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am I don't think that "unpleasant" can at all be unproblematically or universally associated with moral "badness." There seems to me no link at all: one is mere emotional response, and the other calls on us for an objective moral conclusion.

The link is supplied by my argument.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am Hume would surely point out the incompatibility of the premise you're implying and any moral conclusion -- a revised "Hume's Guillotine," if you will: emotions severed from morals by way of being different categories.

Well, again, my argument supplies the link between the two categories.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am "Unpleasantness" is even more trivial than "pain." For who promised us that life is not supposed to be "unpleasant"?

Not being a theist, I don't believe anyone has promised us anything.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am And if it is, then how on earth do we associate that with any moral quality of "badness"?

I refer you once again to my argument, which shows how we get 'bad' from 'unpleasant'.

Sooner or later you must get to grips properly with my argument. You have not claimed that it is internally invalid, so I assume you think that it is valid. In that case you can only refute it by refuting either or both of premises 1 and 2. Nothing you have said so far does this. You have not show reason to reject my theory as to the meaning of 'bad', and you have not shown reason to reject my view that unpleasantness is bad. I hope you will at least admit that this is the case. If this debate is going to go the same way as my debates with Peter Holmes, where he was always claiming to have refuted me when he hadn't, then I will simply leave the debate, because it will be a waste of my time.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am I have yet to see you establish that "things one likes" and "moral" are equivalent.

I haven't claimed this.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am A masochist has a "pro-response" to the thought of causing himself pain, and a sadist has a "pro-response" to causing the pain of others, no doubt; and no doubt they can adduce many reasons for their preferences. But their "pro-responses" are clearly no signal of moral goodness.

If the masochist finds the thought of causing himself pain pleasant, that pleasantness is intrinsically good, and the thought that caused the pleasantness is, to that extent, instrumentally good. If he finds the pain pleasant when it arrives, then that pleasantness is also intrinsically good, and the pain that caused it is instrumentally good. If the masochist is morally responsible for his thoughts (which I personally do not believe, because I don't believe in free will) then his thoughts are morally good to the extent that they cause him pleasantness.

If the sadist finds the thought of causing the pain of others pleasant, that pleasantness is intrinsically good, and the thought that caused it is, to that extent, instrumentally good. If the sadist's victims find the pain unpleasant, then that unpleasantness is instrinsically bad, and the pain that caused it is, to that extent, instrumentally bad. If the sadist's thought of causing this pain was causal in bringing about the pain, then the thought is, to that extent, instrumentally bad. So in this case, the thought is instrumentally good in that it caused pleasantness for the sadist, and instrumentally bad in that it caused unpleasantness to his victims. If the sadist is morally responsible for his thoughts (which I personally do not believe, because I don't believe in free will) then his thoughts are morally good to the extent that they cause him pleasantness, and morally bad to the extent that they cause unpleasantness for his victims.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am "Liking" is not moral. It's merely an emotional reaction, and one that the sadist and masochist can claim in full measure. The moral status of their choices is left untouched by any such assessment.

See my reply to your previous objection.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am
My claim, then, is that you cannot have an experience which is pleasant which is not also in itself likeable, nor an experience which is unpleasant and which is not also in itself dislikeable.
But this is surely circular. "Pleasant," i.e. "that which pleases," is also unquestionably that which one "likes," and hence, has "likeability." So no progress at all is made by succeeding in liking two such near synonyms.

You raise an interesting point here, but it helps my case, not yours. Here again is my premise 2:
"2. Unpleasantness provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response (namely, dislike) to unpleasantness. (Unpleasantness has a property, namely being unavoidably disliked, which provides this reason.)"
Now, there are two possibilities. Either it is an empirical truth that pleasantness is unavoidably liked, or, following your suggestion, it is a logical truth, because 'being pleasant' and 'being liked' mean the same. The issue here is really just a technical one. In any case in which someone has a pleasant experience, the only thing that exists is that someone, and they are having an experience, finding it pleasant, and liking the pleasantness. (I think we have to be careful to say that they are liking the pleasantness, not liking the experience, because you and I could have the same experience of eating Marmite, and because of our different constitutions, I might find the experience pleasant and you might find it unpleasant.)

What you are really doing here is suggesting that premise 2 is tautologically true. Well, perhaps. I don't really mind whether it is tautologically true or true by virtue of the way things are in nature. That issue boils down to how we are going to use the words 'please' and 'like', and their derivatives. I would be inclined to say that calling an experience 'pleasant' is saying something about the experience, whereas saying it is 'unavoidably likeable' is saying something about the relation between the experience and the experiencer; and if there is this difference, then premise 2 cannot be tautologically true. Of course an experience cannot be pleasant if no-one is pleased by it, but that does not guarantee that the words 'pleasant' and 'likeable' actually mean the same thing. But the more important point is that you are in effect supporting my premise 2, not objecting to it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am
Okay, so your argument now becomes this:
1. God created man for fellowship with Him.
2. Only the Creator can possibly say what the purpose/telos (or, we might say, rightful good) is for all men.
3. Therefore, , seeking and having fellowship with God is an unalloyed good for all men.
Clearly 1. stands in need of support, in the form of evidence and/or argument.
It actually doesn't, in this case. For the point is not to convince you of the truth of Theism, as much as I think that's a worthy goal. The purpose is only the more modest claim that IF Theism is true, it is capable of providing rational warrant for morality

Okay, I accept that point.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 amGod does not "create" the values, in the sense that He "creates" the world or man. Rather, the values "good" and "bad," and all other moral terms, proceed from the relationship between the actions in question and the nature of God Himself. That which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God is "good," and that which is contrary to the nature and purposes of God is "bad".

In which case I will ask you what is effectively the same question as before: do you think that the word 'good' actually MEANS 'that which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God'? If not, what do you think 'good' does mean?

Over to you.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 2:49 pm**

CIN2 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 2:42 pm IC:
First I must apologise for misstating my argument in the first place. I should always have said ‘unpleasantness’. not ‘pain’. I was working on the incorrect assumption that the discussion would be easier if I used the commonly employed philosophical term ‘pain’, but this has turned out not to be the case.

I also used the word ‘dislikeability’ in my argument. This again is not precise. The point is not that unpleasantness is dislikeable (i.e. easy to dislike) , the point is that it is such that the experiencer cannot help disliking it. You may like an unpleasant experience for other reasons, but you can’t help disliking the unpleasantness itself. I shall therefore change 'dislikeability' to 'being unavoidably disliked'.

I am also making a slight modification to the meaning of 'bad'. I now think that there is no reference to properties of X when we say 'X is bad'. Rather, it is the case that the possession of properties which provide sufficient reason to give an anti-response to X justifies calling X 'bad'.

Here is my argument in its amended form (please bear in mind that it is not always possible to get an argument right first time):

1. 'X is bad' means 'X provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response to X'.
(In saying 'X is bad', we are both giving an anti-response to X, and at the same time claiming that X merits the anti-response, i.e. provides sufficient reason for us to give the anti-response. For this to be true, it must be the case that X has properties which provide sufficient reason for the anti-response.)
2. Unpleasantness provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response (namely, dislike) to unpleasantness. (Unpleasantness has a property, namely being unavoidably disliked, which provides this reason.)
3. Therefore unpleasantness is bad.
4. Therefore, other things being equal, an action which causes unpleasantness is bad.
5. (On the assumption that there is free will) an agent is morally responsible for an action performed intentionally and knowingly.
6. Therefore an agent intentionally and knowingly causing unpleasantness is morally responsible for causing the unpleasantness.
7. Therefore an agent intentionally and knowingly causing unpleasantness is morally responsible for performing a bad action.
8. Therefore (other things being equal) it is morally bad to intentionally and knowingly cause unpleasantness.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 5:33 am
CIN2 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 17, 2025 11:46 pm I'm not claiming that pain and bad are the same thing (i.e. numerically identical). I claim that badness is necessarily a property of pain (in the sense in which philosophers usually use the word 'pain'). Let me put this as accurately as I can. By 'pain' I mean any experience that is subjectively unpleasant.
That's obviously not the case either. Giving birth is subjectively unpleasant and painful, and yet is the most cherished experience of many women, and one they insist it associated with good, not "badness." Exercise is both painful and healthy, and is highly recommended and freely practiced by athletes, who insist it's "good" for them...and so on.
I am not claiming that any experience which includes pain is a bad experience. I am claiming that the pain itself (or, more accurately, the unpleasantness of the pain) is bad. This does not preclude the experience as a whole from being good.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 5:33 am The complications of things like "the pleasure principle" and "the hedonic calculus" have been well-documented and abundantly repeated. It seems tiresome to me to repeat them now, since they're so widely available in the literature. I'm hopeful you've got some acquaintance with them yourself, or will invest the time to do so.
Well, I’m sorry, but tiresome or not, the burden of proof here is on you. If you are claiming, as you seem to be, that my argument for hedonism has already been refuted, either directly or by implication, then you must at the very least provide references to such refutations. I am not aware of any such refutations. Supposed refutations of hedonism usually amount to no more than claims that the hedonist has overlooked other supposed basic goods, such as freedom and justice. These supposed refutations generally fail because no argument or evidence is provided to support the contention that these are basic goods.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am ...in reality, it is quite impossible to isolate out and decontextualize "pain" in the way you're suggesting we ought to do.
The entire history of anaesthetics refutes this. The reason humans have been able to develop anaesthetics is, precisely, that we have been able to conceive of the pain of surgery, and specifically the unpleasantness of pain, and thereby conceive of the idea of something that would remove the unpleasantness of pain while allowing the surgery to continue.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am And if we do, we find that we lack the necessary surrounding circumstances to make any moral assessment at all of the situation in hand.
Here you are simply assuming that no moral assessment can be made on the basis of the unpleasantness alone. My argument refutes this assumption.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am I don't think that "unpleasant" can at all be unproblematically or universally associated with moral "badness." There seems to me no link at all: one is mere emotional response, and the other calls on us for an objective moral conclusion.
The link is supplied by my argument.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am Hume would surely point out the incompatibility of the premise you're implying and any moral conclusion -- a revised "Hume's Guillotine," if you will: emotions severed from morals by way of being different categories.
Well, again, my argument supplies the link between the two categories.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am "Unpleasantness" is even more trivial than "pain." For who promised us that life is not supposed to be "unpleasant"?
Not being a theist, I don't believe anyone has promised us anything.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am And if it is, then how on earth do we associate that with any moral quality of "badness"?
I refer you once again to my argument, which shows how we get 'bad' from 'unpleasant'.

Sooner or later you must get to grips properly with my argument. You have not claimed that it is internally invalid, so I assume you think that it is valid. In that case you can only refute it by refuting either or both of premises 1 and 2. Nothing you have said so far does this. You have not show reason to reject my theory as to the meaning of 'bad', and you have not shown reason to reject my view that unpleasantness is bad. I hope you will at least admit that this is the case. If this debate is going to go the same way as my debates with Peter Holmes, where he was always claiming to have refuted me when he hadn't, then I will simply leave the debate, because it will be a waste of my time.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am I have yet to see you establish that "things one likes" and "moral" are equivalent.
I haven't claimed this.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am A masochist has a "pro-response" to the thought of causing himself pain, and a sadist has a "pro-response" to causing the pain of others, no doubt; and no doubt they can adduce many reasons for their preferences. But their "pro-responses" are clearly no signal of moral goodness.
If the masochist finds the thought of causing himself pain pleasant, that pleasantness is intrinsically good, and the thought that caused the pleasantness is, to that extent, instrumentally good. If he finds the pain pleasant when it arrives, then that pleasantness is also intrinsically good, and the pain that caused it is instrumentally good. If the masochist is morally responsible for his thoughts (which I personally do not believe, because I don't believe in free will) then his thoughts are morally good to the extent that they cause him pleasantness.

If the sadist finds the thought of causing the pain of others pleasant, that pleasantness is intrinsically good, and the thought that caused it is, to that extent, instrumentally good. If the sadist's victims find the pain unpleasant, then that unpleasantness is instrinsically bad, and the pain that caused it is, to that extent, instrumentally bad. If the sadist's thought of causing this pain was causal in bringing about the pain, then the thought is, to that extent, instrumentally bad. So in this case, the thought is instrumentally good in that it caused pleasantness for the sadist, and instrumentally bad in that it caused unpleasantness to his victims. If the sadist is morally responsible for his thoughts (which I personally do not believe, because I don't believe in free will) then his thoughts are morally good to the extent that they cause him pleasantness, and morally bad to the extent that they cause unpleasantness for his victims.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am "Liking" is not moral. It's merely an emotional reaction, and one that the sadist and masochist can claim in full measure. The moral status of their choices is left untouched by any such assessment.
See my reply to your previous objection.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am
My claim, then, is that you cannot have an experience which is pleasant which is not also in itself likeable, nor an experience which is unpleasant and which is not also in itself dislikeable.
But this is surely circular. "Pleasant," i.e. "that which pleases," is also unquestionably that which one "likes," and hence, has "likeability." So no progress at all is made by succeeding in liking two such near synonyms.
You raise an interesting point here, but it helps my case, not yours. Here again is my premise 2:
"2. Unpleasantness provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response (namely, dislike) to unpleasantness. (Unpleasantness has a property, namely being unavoidably disliked, which provides this reason.)"
Now, there are two possibilities. Either it is an empirical truth that pleasantness is unavoidably liked, or, following your suggestion, it is a logical truth, because 'being pleasant' and 'being liked' mean the same. The issue here is really just a technical one. In any case in which someone has a pleasant experience, the only thing that exists is that someone, and they are having an experience, finding it pleasant, and liking the pleasantness. (I think we have to be careful to say that they are liking the pleasantness, not liking the experience, because you and I could have the same experience of eating Marmite, and because of our different constitutions, I might find the experience pleasant and you might find it unpleasant.)

What you are really doing here is suggesting that premise 2 is tautologically true. Well, perhaps. I don't really mind whether it is tautologically true or true by virtue of the way things are in nature. That issue boils down to how we are going to use the words 'please' and 'like', and their derivatives. I would be inclined to say that calling an experience 'pleasant' is saying something about the experience, whereas saying it is 'unavoidably likeable' is saying something about the relation between the experience and the experiencer; and if there is this difference, then premise 2 cannot be tautologically true. Of course an experience cannot be pleasant if no-one is pleased by it, but that does not guarantee that the words 'pleasant' and 'likeable' actually mean the same thing. But the more important point is that you are in effect supporting my premise 2, not objecting to it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am
Okay, so your argument now becomes this:
1. God created man for fellowship with Him.
2. Only the Creator can possibly say what the purpose/telos (or, we might say, rightful good) is for all men.
3. Therefore, , seeking and having fellowship with God is an unalloyed good for all men.
Clearly 1. stands in need of support, in the form of evidence and/or argument.
It actually doesn't, in this case. For the point is not to convince you of the truth of Theism, as much as I think that's a worthy goal. The purpose is only the more modest claim that IF Theism is true, it is capable of providing rational warrant for morality
Okay, I accept that point.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 amGod does not "create" the values, in the sense that He "creates" the world or man. Rather, the values "good" and "bad," and all other moral terms, proceed from the relationship between the actions in question and the nature of God Himself. That which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God is "good," and that which is contrary to the nature and purposes of God is "bad".
In which case I will ask you what is effectively the same question as before: do you think that the word 'good' actually MEANS 'that which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God'? If not, what do you think 'good' does mean?

Over to you.

The great strength of trinitarian theism is that it explains through Jesus how to harmonise with the nature and purposes of God. In effect the life and work of Jesus are Platonic good made manifest,

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 4:41 pm**

All systems, institutions, and everything that is not the geology of the Earth are biological extensions of the human psyche. All the religions of the world are man-made, as biological constructs/extensions into our outer world. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things; the biological subject is the centre of its universe, and this is common to all organisms. An organism's apparent reality is true to its biological state; change the biology and you change that organism's apparent reality, but still, it is the centre of its universe. Biology is the rational foundation of morality as its logical subject/foundation. It is the centre and the source of meaning in this world.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 5:06 pm**

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 4:41 pm

However, mathematics is a language to recognize and discover order, rather than create order.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 8:09 pm**

CIN2 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 2:42 pm Here is my argument in its amended form (please bear in mind that it is not always possible to get an argument right first time):

I'm absolutely fine with this. We're all working through things, and we have every right to change how we say things. No shame involved.

1. 'X is bad' means 'X provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response to X'.
(In saying 'X is bad', we are both giving an anti-response to X, and at the same time claiming that X merits the anti-response, i.e. provides sufficient reason for us to give the anti-response. For this to be true, it must be the case that X has properties which provide sufficient reason for the anti-response.)
2. Unpleasantness provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response (namely, dislike) to unpleasantness. (Unpleasantness has a property, namely being unavoidably disliked, which provides this reason.)
3. Therefore unpleasantness is bad.

Here's what's called and "amphiboly." It's like changing horses in midstream, so to speak: it's when we use one word for our premises, but a different one for our conclusions. And it signals a fault in logic.
There are three amphibolized terms here: "unpleasant" (or "avoidably disliked"), "anti-response" and "bad." And if we think about them, we soon realize they're not exactly the same, and don't warrant each other.

Let's start with "unpleasant." What force in the universe assures us that we are not to suffer what is "unpleasant" to us? Much of work is unpleasant, and yet must be done. Childbirth is, at least initially, unpleasant, and child-rearing is often very difficult and unpleasant. Why should we assume our lack of being "pleased" amounts to any kind of moral claim? I can see no reason.

Of course, "avoidability" would be irrelevant here. Some "unpleasantness" we can avoid, no doubt, and some not. Nothing about whether or not a thing is "avoidable" adds any moral content, so far as I can see.

Secondly, "anti-response." If I have an "anti-response" to something, it's just a feeling I have. Some people have an "anti-response" to homosexuality, and some have a strongly "pro-response" to it: can we solve the question of homosexuality's moral status with reference to how these people feel, when they feel the dead opposite?

So what is "bad"? Here, we come to the proposed first conclusion in the chain syllogism you've suggested:

4. Therefore, other things being equal, an action which causes unpleasantness is bad.

What does "bad" mean, in this context now? "Unpleasant"? "Evoking an anti-reaction"? But how do we know whether homosexuality is good, bad or neutral, now? Some people find it unpleasant, and have an anti-reaction; others don't. So we're still in the dark over whether or not homosexual acts are good or bad.

Until we solve this #4 problem, we certainly can't move on to 4-8, since they are intended to depend on that initial conclusion, are they not? But if we can, maybe we can look at the next steps.

I am not claiming that any experience which includes pain is a bad experience. I am claiming that the pain itself (or, more accurately, the unpleasantness of the pain) is bad. This does not preclude the experience as a whole from being good.

Well, since "pain" is an effect, not a thing-in-itself, we really can't do that, can we? "Pain" is always the product of definite causes and actions, even when we don't happen to know what that cause is (as in the case of a mysterious disease or an unknown malevolence). So how can we say that we have a clear case of "pain" being " bad" in a "pain" that is divorced from all circumstances, since that never happens in real life? Is it not in real life that we want to know what is "good" and "bad" for us to do, morally speaking? Then how useful could it be to say that pain is "bad," when it can often be found in conditions of considerable good, and is never found in some pure, distilled and non-caused form? Is not the business of morals to weigh off, in fact, whether the pain incurred in a heroic act or a criminal one is "worth it" morally speaking, in that it's still moral/immoral for us to do, regardless of what pain is entailed?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 5:33 am The complications of things like "the pleasure principle" and "the hedonic calculus" have been well-documented and abundantly repeated. It seems tiresome to me to repeat them now, since they're so widely available in the literature. I'm hopeful you've got some acquaintance with them yourself, or will invest the time to do so.
Well, I’m sorry, but tiresome or not, the burden of proof here is on you.

So be it.

Here's just a start:
Utilitarianism, a moral philosophy focused on maximizing overall happiness, faces several criticisms. These include the difficulty of quantifying happiness, potential for ignoring individual rights and special obligations, and the possibility of justifying actions with negative consequences if they produce overall benefit.
1. The Difficulty of Quantifying Happiness: A major challenge is the practical difficulty of measuring and comparing happiness across individuals, making it difficult to determine which actions produce the greatest overall good.
2. The Rights Objection: Critics argue that utilitarianism can potentially justify violations of individual rights if doing so leads to a greater overall happiness for the majority, potentially leading to situations where innocent people are harmed for the benefit of others.
3. The Separateness of Persons Objection: Utilitarianism is often criticized for potentially ignoring the distinctness and special obligations of individuals, focusing instead on the aggregate happiness of society.
4. The Mere Means Objection: This critique suggests that utilitarianism might treat individuals as mere means to an end, prioritizing the overall good over the well-being and individual autonomy of specific people.
5. The Problem of Predicting Consequences: Utilitarianism relies on predicting the consequences of actions, but these predictions can be uncertain and complex. The long-term effects of actions may be difficult to foresee, making it challenging to determine the true consequences and ensure that the action indeed maximizes happiness.
6. The Potential for Justifying Harmful Actions: Some critics argue that utilitarianism could potentially justify actions that cause significant harm to a minority if the overall benefit to the majority is sufficiently large, potentially leading to unjust or harmful outcomes.
7. The Problem of Defining Happiness: While utilitarianism aims to maximize happiness, there is debate about what constitutes happiness and how it should be defined. This lack of clear definition can make it difficult to apply the principle consistently and can lead to differing interpretations of what constitutes the "greatest good".

There are plenty more: for example, the Nietzschean critique, the Rule-Act controversy, the Ranking Problem... But this will get you going on refutations, if that's what you'd like to do.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am ...in reality, it is quite impossible to isolate out and decontextualize "pain" in the way you're suggesting we ought to do.
The entire history of anaesthetics refutes this.

No, anaesthetics do the opposite: they remove the feeling of pain, but do nothing to remove the cause. And the anaesthetic heals nothing. Making something painless doesn't make it "right" or "good." A person taking fentanyl will stop feeling pain, but is that morally good? Surely not. And it is likely to end up increasing his pain later, as well.

By the way, that's a further criticism of the "pleasure-pain" view of ethics: the timeframe. How long do we wait, in order to judge the goodness or badness of something, since there are long-term and short-term pleasures and pains? These views have no stable answer to that question.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am I don't think that "unpleasant" can at all be unproblematically or universally associated with moral "badness." There seems to me no link at all: one is mere emotional response, and the other calls on us for an objective moral conclusion.
The link is supplied by my argument.

Well, no, it's really not. We're back to the old Is-ought controversy here: and to understand that, I can recommend a look at Hume's point about this. We can't get a moral conclusion from a merely factual premise.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am Hume would surely point out the incompatibility of the premise you're implying and any moral conclusion -- a revised "Hume's Guillotine," if you will: emotions severed from morals by way of being different categories.
Well, again, my argument supplies the link between the two categories.

Again, sorry...you're just not understanding the Is-Ought controversy, perhaps. Here's a PN article that will help https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/Thoughts_on_Oughts

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am "Unpleasantness" is even more trivial than "pain." For who promised us that life is not supposed to be "unpleasant"?
Not being a theist, I don't believe anyone has promised us anything.

Precisely my point! Since you are not promised pleasantness or the avoidance of pain, one can't say either is morally good or bad...from a non-Theistic perspective, that is.

Sooner or later you must get to grips properly with my argument.

Done, above.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am I have yet to see you establish that "things one likes" and "moral" are equivalent.
I haven't claimed this.

Well, then, "pleasant" isn't "good," and "unpleasant" isn't "bad"; at least from a secular perspective, on has no justification for insisting they are.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am A masochist has a "pro-response" to the thought of causing himself pain, and a sadist has a "pro-response" to causing the pain of others, no doubt; and no doubt they can adduce many reasons for their preferences. But their "pro-responses" are clearly no signal of moral goodness.
If the masochist finds the thought of causing himself pain pleasant, that pleasantness is intrinsically good, and the thought that caused the pleasantness is, to that extent, instrumentally good. If he finds the pain pleasant when it arrives, then that pleasantness is also intrinsically good, and the pain that caused it is instrumentally good. If the masochist is morally responsible for his thoughts (which I personally do not believe, because I don't believe in free will) then his thoughts are morally good to the extent that they cause him pleasantness.

Well, I can see you have a firm commitment to your view, though I think it's highly counterintuitive. Most people would not agree to so much, I think, as to believe that a sadist or masochist could be doing "good" to himself or others, simply if he is experiencing "pleasure" in the pain he causes himself or others.

I think that we all instantly recognize the masochist is doing evil to himself (say, carving his wrists with sharp objects, which is one of the things they're known to do), and the sadist is doing evil to others, regardless of the delight he's taking in doing it. And if we think otherwise, I suggest we've voided the words "good" and "bad" of any specific meaning at all...ANYTHING could be "good" or "bad"; and hence, nothing can be specifically either one.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am But this is surely circular. "Pleasant," i.e. "that which pleases," is also unquestionably that which one "likes," and hence, has "likeability." So no progress at all is made by succeeding in liking two such near synonyms.
You raise an interesting point here, but it helps my case, not yours.

I don't think it "helps" at all. It just produces the old amphiboly problem, and so logically renders any subsequent conclusions not logically valid.

What you are really doing here is suggesting that premise 2 is tautologically true.

Not quite: I'm saying that if the two words are exact synonyms, it's devoid of significance, because circular. It's like saying "An elephant is an grey, round thing." Well, that will never tell us what an "elephant" really is, will it? And if they are not exact synonyms, then we have amphiboly again, and the logic fails to arrive at the conclusion in a valid way.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 am It actually doesn't, in this case. For the point is not to convince you of the truth of Theism, as much as I think that's a worthy goal. The purpose is only the more modest claim that IF Theism is true, it is capable of providing rational warrant for morality
Okay, I accept that point.

Fair enough. That's all I was pointing out.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 amGod does not "create" the values, in the sense that He "creates" the world or man. Rather, the values "good" and "bad," and all other moral terms, proceed from the relationship between the actions in question and the nature of God Himself. That which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God is "good," and that which is contrary to the nature and purposes of God is "bad".
In which case I will ask you what is effectively the same question as before: do you think that the word 'good' actually MEANS 'that which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God'?

Yes, that's its definition. It's the very essence of the good.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 8:34 pm**

Walker wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 5:06 pm
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 4:41 pm
However, mathematics is a language to recognize and discover order, rather than create order.

I don't recall making that statement. However, it is obvious that with the aid of mathematics one can create order where once was chaos.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 9:09 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:06 amGod does not "create" the values, in the sense that He "creates" the world or man. Rather, the values "good" and "bad," and all other moral terms, proceed from the relationship between the actions in question and the nature of God Himself. That which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God is "good," and that which is contrary to the nature and purposes of God is "bad".
In which case I will ask you what is effectively the same question as before: do you think that the word 'good' actually MEANS 'that which is consonant and harmonious with the nature and purposes of God'?
Yes, that's its definition. It's the very essence of the good.

Maybe if we all prayed and worshiped God more, there would be paradise on Earth.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 9:39 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:51 am
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:37 am

So...extinction is immoral, and survival (or is it security) is supposedly moral? Let's test that.
Please explain how we get this out of biology. I've been told that the biological view is supposed to be "survival of the fittest," not "survival of the moral," but maybe you can fill in this story. It also seems to me that extinctions happen all the time, without implicating any morality at all, and survival happens, but also doesn't implicate morality. So, for example, the COVID virus survives, and the great auk is extinct. What makes the COVID virus's behaviour moral, and the great auk's not moral?
Extinction is amoral, meaning it is beyond the control of biology itself, like most things in the world; extinction just is.
Okay, then biology isn't morally instructing us that we have any duty to survive, any more than the great auk or the COVID virus did.

The above seems a confused statement, but perhaps my explanations do not clarify. Yes, biology does instruct organisms to create morality though perhaps not in an obvious way. Compassion for others does not arise until one identifies oneself in the self of others, an expanded concept of self. With the rise of compassion for others comes the foundation for a moral system to live by that serves the self-interests of all the selves of a given group. You need to grasp the reality that biology is the measure and the meaning of all things; in this sense, you as biology are a creator of the meanings and values that surround you.

Biological consciousness gives all things meaning.

How? What is it about consciousness that "gives things meaning"? Do you mean anything more than, human beings imagine things have meaning? Then it's not biology that's telling us anything, it's humans...and they're deluding themselves, unless objective meaning exists.

In isolation, morality is meaningless;

We agree about that.

Biological behaviours have some commonality across the board.

That doesn't show that the behaviours are moral: they include predation, violence, and such.

Biology is the agent that behaves, and biology only makes judgments and creates values. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things.

The drive for survival is what introduces the need for morality,

Well, that's not at all clear. But it's even less clear that our felt "need" means that we can have whatever it is we think we "need." To be sure, I'm confident the great auk would have preferred to live; but they didn't get to. [/quote]

You're missing the point. Biology is governed by the larger reality of the physical environment. When the environment changes, then so must the biology of the creature to stay adapted to its environment; if it does not, it perishes. It does this through its plasticity, its ability to react/change at every level of its nature. These reactions are causes to the creatures' outside world, thus contributing incrementally to its ever-changing world.

I don't doubt that human beings feel the need for meaning. But they can't have it in a merely "biological" world, because there are no objective duties at all in such a place, nobody in charge, no moral direction to the whole, and no such thing as objective moral truths.

it is moral to survive. In a world said to "progress" through "survival of the fittest"? Surely not. Some things will survive, and some will go extinct, and it will just be "survival of the fittest." Morality doesn't even enter into that equation, so far as I can see. If it does, you'll have to show where; it's not obvious.

Our apparent reality, our everyday reality, comes about through the union of subject/biology and object/ the physical world. The energy forms/objects of the physical world alter the biology of a creature, giving it experience; the judgment of that experience is its meaning to a conscious subject, meaning is what the physical world does to biology. Meaning it needs to be understood is the property of the conscious subject and does not belong to the object. This is so because we do not experience what is out there; we experience how what is out there alters/changes our biological nature, giving us the experience of being altered/changed. There is no morality in nature until creatures form groups, packs, and societies. You need to ponder this stuff awhile if we are to continue.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2025 9:55 pm**

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 9:39 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:51 am
popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 1:37 am
Extinction is amoral, meaning it is beyond the control of biology itself, like most things in the world; extinction just is.
Okay, then biology isn't morally instructing us that we have any duty to survive, any more than the great auk or the COVID virus did.
The above seems a confused statement,

It shouldn't. It's very straightforward. "Biology" doesn't have opinions. It certainly is not capable of "caring" whether or not one species lives or dies, even humans. It doesn't "instruct." It's not a person. It's a set of entirely indifferent forces, according to secularism. It does not tell us what life "means," or what it is our duty to do, or that we have to live or die, far less what is moral for us to do or be.

If it did, we'd have a naturalistic basis for morality, and we'd always have had it. But what we find we have instead is what is called, "The Naturalistic Fallacy." See https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer- ... c-fallacy/

...biology only makes judgments and creates values. Biology is the measure and the meaning of all things.

I can't even begin to imagine what you're supposing from this. It just looks to me like the Naturalistic Fallacy again. There's no way biology does any of these things.

And how do you then go on to say this?

There is no morality in nature

Right. So far, so good...but then, you add...

...until creatures form groups, packs, and societies.

This doesn't follow at all. While I agree that morality is a group concept, it is that only for humans. It doesn't apply to wolves, or whales, or smelts, or paramecia, all of which aggregate. So you should ask yourself why humans have morality, and nothing else does. Lions form prides...but when they kill zebras or kill rivals from other prides, we don't call them "bad." We just say, "They're doing what comes naturally."

So why impose on human beings (which you have to suppose are just animals, after all) rules that do not exist for any other creature? Nature, that does not care when chimps eat each other, somehow cares when humans do?

How do you figure that?

Philosophy Now Forum

Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

Re: Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system