Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:32 am Sorry if these have already been mentioned - but two texts have interesting and evidenced (if not flawless) arguments on the question of our moral progress:

'The Better Angels of Our Nature - Why Violence Has Declined', Steven Pinker, 2011

'The Moral Arc - How Science Leads Humanity Toward Truth, Justice and Freedom', Michael Shermer, 2015

Shermer and Pinker are both Atheists. As such, they have no way to legitimate their use of moral categories at all. As you said earlier, Peter, there is, in the Atheist worldview, no objective properties that correspond to moral values.

In other words, Shermer and Pinker are, by their own confession, behaving like someone who is trying to write a manual for unicorn farming...talking about cultivating a thing which, by definition, they cannot believe exists at all.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jul 14, 2018 10:29 am But this assumes that there is indeed something to be known: an object of some kind that verifies the assertion slavery is wrong and falsifies the assertion slavery is right - or, perhaps, vice versa. But what is the object that makes moral judgements objective - matters of fact - and therefore true or false?

Not an "object," Pete: an objectively-true-adjective.

"Right" is not an object. It's an adjective describing a real property. In that, it's analogous to properties like "redness" or "livingness." They aren't objects either; they are qualities ascribed to particular things. But they also can be objectively right or wrong -- an object can have or lack "redness" or "livingness."

(The claim that objective moral values and judgements come from a god's commands or a god's nature begs the question: what makes a god's commands or a god's nature objectively morally good?)

Au contraire: to frame the question is God's command good, or is good God's command, is to force a false dichotomy on the question. There is no reason to suppose a distinction between the two. So your question is like asking, "Is this man Donald Trump, or is he the President of the US?" The answer to both is "Yes." It's the "or" that is at fault there.

If God is the Originator and the very Definer of the concept "good," then it would be unsurprising if His commands were also "good." In fact, what else could they be? As you rightly intuit, there would be no frame of reference beyond God Himself by which His commands could be evaluated.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 2:03 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:40 am Note I have used legal chattel slavery as one obvious example.

And while this has been statistically debunked, you've clung to it with ardent fervour.

Note I stated 'legal' chattel slavery which as the intention right from the beginning.
It is a fact chattel slavery is made illegal in ALL [if not most] recognized nations in the world.
As such on this very specific issue there are improvements.

The article you cited is modern slavery not legal chattel slavery.

That's why it's unfalsifiable. No empirical proof is enough for you on that point, it seems. Your belief that the human race is morally evolving seems too precious to you to admit of any gainsaying, no matter how much evidence is available.

But I can venture a guess as to why. My guess is this: that without it, you're in deep ethical trouble. We both know there is a thing called evil at work in this world. (Even you have agreed that chattel slavery of the past is one evidence of it). And if It's not solving itself, you've got to do some serious ethical explaining. However, if it's just disappearing on its own, perhaps the task of explaining can just be put off long enough to avoid having to do it at all.

However, if that's it, then it's not good logic. It's just blind optimism. And blind optimism is both permissive of evil and dangerous: it not only allows the continuation of the modern slave trades unimpeded, but it's also of the kind that gets naive Americans killed on their bicycles.

I have stated it many times, I am not naive to think there is no illegal slavery going on around the world.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:39 am The article you cited is modern slavery not legal chattel slavery.

So you're not against chattel slavery IF the local government declares it legal? Or do you mean that if they declare it illegal publicly, then it's not as bad as if they didn't?

Well, this much is very clear: I can guarantee you that it makes no difference to the slaves whether or not the government of the country has lied to the UN. My own view would be that chattel slavery is an equal abomination in both cases.

But if you wish to regard the ability to lie as a kind of moral improvement, then I guess you would say that a government that claims to have outlawed slavery (but manifestly did no such thing in practice) was better than one that never lied about it at all.

Personally, I think that's an unsustainable view.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:41 pmShermer and Pinker are both Atheists. As such, they have no way to legitimate their use of moral categories at all.

Mr Can, until you demonstrate that your God exists, nor do you. Should you succeed, we will have to concede that slavery, genocide and human sacrifice are moral.

The quotations are a bit muddled here, but I think who says what is clear enough.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:52 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jul 14, 2018 10:29 am But this assumes that there is indeed something to be known: an object of some kind that verifies the assertion slavery is wrong and falsifies the assertion slavery is right - or, perhaps, vice versa. But what is the object that makes moral judgements objective - matters of fact - and therefore true or false?

Not an "object," Pete: an objectively-true-adjective.

"Right" is not an object. It's an adjective describing a real property. In that, it's analogous to properties like "redness" or "livingness." They aren't objects either; they are qualities ascribed to particular things. But they also can be objectively right or wrong -- an object can have or lack "redness" or "livingness."

I'm afraid your grammar is as muddled as the rest of your thinking. We can use the adjectives 'red' and 'living' to modify nouns, thus ascribing properties to things by making falsifiable factual assertions: this thing is red; this is a living thing. But the adjectival phrases 'morally right' and 'morally wrong' don't ascribe such identifiable properties. As you say, the nouns 'redness' and 'livingness' are the names of properties, but 'moral rightness' and 'moral wrongness' aren't. Back to the drawing board again.

(The claim that objective moral values and judgements come from a god's commands or a god's nature begs the question: what makes a god's commands or a god's nature objectively morally good?)

Au contraire: to frame the question is God's command good, or is good God's command, is to force a false dichotomy on the question. There is no reason to suppose a distinction between the two. So your question is like asking, "Is this man Donald Trump, or is he the President of the US?" The answer to both is "Yes." It's the "or" that is at fault there.

If God is the Originator and the very Definer of the concept "good," then it would be unsurprising if His commands were also "good." In fact, what else could they be? As you rightly intuit, there would be no frame of reference beyond God Himself by which His commands could be evaluated.
[/quote]

As usual, you completely misunderstand the issue. The moral assertion 'this god is good' expresses a value-judgement about the god. From the (so far unjustified) claim that a god defined the meaning of the word 'good', it doesn't follow that that god is therefore good. I expect even you can see the absurdity of that reasoning. Back to the drawing board.

In any philosophical debate one can always sense those that really don't have a chance at truth, or even know what knowledge is, as the foundation of their 'believed' strength is based upon unprovable assumptions. Why are we even compelled to argue with them, because as liars/fools, they shall always invent more lies/subterfuge when boxed in. So what's the point? Knowing this while attempting to keep them on the run hoping for their exhaustion?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:22 pm ...the adjectival phrases 'morally right' and 'morally wrong' don't ascribe such identifiable properties.

Ha. The grammar's just fine: you'll discover that "right" and "wrong," "good" and "evil" are adjectives.

The only debatable point is whether or not those adjectives refer to real properties. You declare "NO," but unilaterally, and without warrant. But the blind man doesn't understand "red," and the "dead" thing is not capable of understanding "living." That doesn't mean that viability or redness are not objectively real properties; it just means that one has to be paying attention to the right faculty and to be capable of the appropriate kind of detection. One who has already decided there's no "good" and no "evil" is bound to be limited in detecting either, and when he does, to dismiss the perception instantly.

The moral assertion 'this god is good' expresses a value-judgement about the god. From the (so far unjustified) claim that a god defined the meaning of the word 'good', it doesn't follow that that god is therefore good.

The old joke says that if you want to know about water, don't ask a fish. There's wisdom in that. We don't have clear vision of things with which we have lived all our lives, and which we have come to take for granted.

One might also say, "If you want to know what good and evil are, don't ask a mere created being." For the categories "good" and "evil" which the created being uses to adjudicate are not his own -- they are borrowed from the Creator -- and hence, he is in no position to know anything about "good" and "evil" that is not already defined by the Creator Himself.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 22, 2018 7:02 pmThe old joke says that if you want to know about water, don't ask a fish. There's wisdom in that. We don't have clear vision of things with which we have lived all our lives, and which we have come to take for granted.

There you have it, folks. If ya wanna know about christianity, don't ask a christian.

[quote="Peter Holmes]
Does any moral objectivist here have an answer that doesn't beg the question?

Kantian ethics is objective because moral conduct can be universalized. His categorical imperative does not question beg.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:20 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:39 am The article you cited is modern slavery not legal chattel slavery.

So you're not against chattel slavery IF the local government declares it legal? Or do you mean that if they declare it illegal publicly, then it's not as bad as if they didn't?

Well, this much is very clear: I can guarantee you that it makes no difference to the slaves whether or not the government of the country has lied to the UN. My own view would be that chattel slavery is an equal abomination in both cases.

But if you wish to regard the ability to lie as a kind of moral improvement, then I guess you would say that a government that claims to have outlawed slavery (but manifestly did no such thing in practice) was better than one that never lied about it at all.

Personally, I think that's an unsustainable view.

Nah, you missed my point.

What I stated was,

Legal Chattel Slavery then was a bane [morally] to humanity.
At present ALL [if not >95%] recognized nations has enacted laws to ban and make Chattel Slavery illegal.
This change from legal to making Chattel Slavery illegal is an indication of a specific progress related to laws on slavery.
Underlying this change is the evolving pulse of the inherent moral drive within humanity.

As with any laws there will be people attempting to find loop holes and act against the laws.
Whether there are more 'slaves' [based on subjective definitions] now as compared to the past is not relevant to my point.
One significant point with Laws is if anyone were to commit against 'Chattel Slavery' they are at risk of imprisonment but that is not the case when it was legal.

UK modern slavery offense charges jump 27% in past year
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/09/uk/u ... index.html

When slavery was legal or ignored in the past, we would not have read of the above sort of news.

Ginkgo wrote:

Kantian ethics is objective because moral conduct can be universalized. His categorical imperative does not question beg.

I disagree. Kant made the same mistake as Aristotle, confusing the (possibly factual) reason for making a moral judgement with the judgement itself.

Immanuel Can wrote:

you'll discover that "right" and "wrong," "good" and "evil" are adjectives.

The only debatable point is whether or not those adjectives refer to real properties. You declare "NO," but unilaterally, and without warrant. But the blind man doesn't understand "red," and the "dead" thing is not capable of understanding "living." That doesn't mean that viability or redness are not objectively real properties; it just means that one has to be paying attention to the right faculty and to be capable of the appropriate kind of detection. One who has already decided there's no "good" and no "evil" is bound to be limited in detecting either, and when he does, to dismiss the perception instantly.

So your story is that there are things - right, wrong, good and evil - that are 'objectively real properties' like redness and being alive - and that 'one has to be paying attention to the right faculty and to be capable of the appropriate kind of detection' in order to perceive those properties. Have I understood your argument? And do you claim we all have the right faculty, but that some of us don't pay attention to it?

If so, let's try the idea out with a moral dilemma: the genital mutilation of babies. I assume this action has the objectively real property of being morally right or wrong, good or evil. Which do you think it is? What does the appropriate kind of detection tell you which it is: good or evil? And if God commanded us to do it, would that make it objectively good - or evil?

Clearly, being an atheist, I have no way of judging whether the genital mutilation of babies is right or wrong, good or evil - I can't possibly have any standard by which to decide - so I need your advice.

SpheresOfBalance wrote:

In any philosophical debate one can always sense those that really don't have a chance at truth, or even know what knowledge is, as the foundation of their 'believed' strength is based upon unprovable assumptions. Why are we even compelled to argue with them, because as liars/fools, they shall always invent more lies/subterfuge when boxed in. So what's the point? Knowing this while attempting to keep them on the run hoping for their exhaustion?

I like to think that rational discussion can bring about changes in ways of thinking, if only slowly and indirectly. And the spectators may benefit, even if the participants don't.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 23, 2018 10:24 am Ginkgo wrote:

Kantian ethics is objective because moral conduct can be universalized. His categorical imperative does not question beg.

I disagree. Kant made the same mistake as Aristotle, confusing the (possibly factual) reason for making a moral judgement with the judgement itself.

Are you disagreeing with Kant's claim that moral behaviour can be universalized, or are you saying that the categorical imperative question begs?