IS and OUGHT

[Astro Cat]

Does an AI that I create belong to me by right of creation?

If you made it, it's yours. Who else's would it be?

However, in a non-objective-moral-having world, there is no imperative that creatures with volition must not be enslaved, brutalized even, or killed. There are, in fact, no actual imperatives at all. There is no substance to morality; it's just concept with no referent. If the AI doesn't "like" to be enslaved or owned, that's just too bad for the AI, in such a world.

Good thing we don't live in such.

I do not agree with this notion that agents are “anybody’s,” not even their creators simply for the act of creating them. If I create a sentient and sapient AI, that AI is its own being: it is not obligated to fulfill my wishes. That’s just slavery with extra steps.

Plus I do not believe the argument “creations must fulfill the wishes of their creators” has substance; it has the feeling of a preference, not a truth. Can you argue for its truth?

Nor do you have to actualize God's best for your life. You are a free will agent. You can choose to do otherwise. God will not force you into a relationship with Him. He will respect your will, and allow you to reject Him entirely, though He is the source of all that is good, healthy, life-giving and beneficial for you.

You can decide you don't want to acknowledge any of God's reasonable claims on you.

But for many reasons, you "ought" not.

You can argue “if you value things like living a healthy life, then you ought to do what God says.” But that is a hypothetical imperative.

I’m asking why I ought to do what God says without a hypothetical imperative.

And all of this is forgetting that God’s intention for the creation doesn’t come from God in the first place

Of course it does.

No, because you argued that God has a nature (to be good), which I pointed out that God couldn’t have had a choice in whether He had or not. So God is basically following a program: perhaps He likes being good, but He didn’t choose to be good; something else caused that (and I do not mean “caused” in a temporal sense; I mean God is dependent on something: that which makes God’s nature what it is, call it reality maybe). So God’s good intentions don’t come from God. They come from whatever made it so that God is good. Call it reality or something, but it doesn’t come from God; He’s just following the program.

why ought Cat follow those wishes?

For all the reasons I cited. And also, because it's certainly in Cat's best interests to do so, as well.

The reasons you’ve cited have issues, raised in this post.

If X is good, then Cat ought to do X because it is good: whether God desires X or not is extraneous if God doesn’t define goodness (instead, goodness defines God’s nature).

So what is goodness? If we say goodness is that which God desires, at worst we are sinking into DCT, at best we are being circular in a vicious way: if we say God has a good nature so what God desires is good, we can’t answer “well what is goodness then” with “what God desires” without being viciously circular.

On the moral realist picture, something about reality makes X good and God just agrees that X is good. But what does it mean to be good, then? What does it mean for there to be an ought? This still isn’t answered by your responses. You come close to flirting with DCT or at least taking this viciously circular non-definition.

[Astro Cat]

Are you still entertained by the honeymoon?

[Immanuel Can]

If I create a sentient and sapient AI, that AI is its own being: it is not obligated to fulfill my wishes. That’s just slavery with extra steps.

But in the world you describe, slavery itself is not "wrong."

But all this is speculative: there is no such thing as AI -- not really. And if it ever happens, then maybe there will be moral questions...provided my worldview is true...

Not in yours.

Plus I do not believe the argument “creations must fulfill the wishes of their creators” has substance; it has the feeling of a preference, not a truth. Can you argue for its truth?

Where did you take that "quotation" from? I don't think it's from me.

But your question is really, "Does the creature have a duty to fulfill the Creator's wishes." And my answer to that is, "Of course."

For you are not self-created. Your design is not your own. And you have no power at all to give yourself life. You are, instead, part of a divine plan, a fixture in the beneficent intentions of a loving God...blessed to have the opportunity to discover all the wonderful potentials He has put in you, and endowed with your own volition and choices. You owe your Creator, at least, your gratitude; but if you want to be all that you can be, you also owe Him your love and your service in the purposes He has prepared you to fulfill. You have a mission, a calling, a purpose in this world; and it is not merely to gratify your animal desires and then die.

Morality is importantly involved in this. There are ways you are to treat God's creation, and all the people He has put in it. They are not at your disposal to use or abuse as you might feel inclined. They, too, are dignified creatures, each with his or her own best destiny. And you have been gifted with free volition and creativity to use in the actualizing of all that is best in this world and in other people. Now, you are offered the opportunity as well to enter into an eternal relationship with your Creator -- of your own free will, of course -- so that you may achieve things you never imagined possible and become a much better kind of person than you ever imagined you could be.

The question is, do you want any of that? Or are you going to misread it as some kind of "enslavement," even though slaves never have a choice, and are rarely invited to bring their own creativity and personality to bear on anything the "master" wants. Are you going to take what is offered you, or refuse it and live on your own terms?

That's the real question, here.

And I think the "case" makes itself, therefore.

You can argue “if you value things like living a healthy life, then you ought to do what God says.” But that is a hypothetical imperative.

I didn't argue that. I just told you what will happen with one choice and with the other. I put on you no "imperative," but rather offer you the free choice.

However, all choices have consequences. And the free choice to reject relationship with the ultimate Source of all life, light, health, joy, purpose, and love is going to have consequences. It's a choice one can make: so long as one also is content to receive the consequences that naturally follow with each choice.

That's what freedom and volition entail. It means you get choice. It doesn't mean all choices are good, or that all choices are pain-free. It means that you get the choice with it's consequences.

And all of this is forgetting that God’s intention for the creation doesn’t come from God in the first place

Of course it does.

No, because you argued that God has a nature (to be good), which I pointed out that God couldn’t have had a choice...

And I pointed out that "choice" has nothing to do with "nature" for anybody ever. That's a category error.

So the absence of "choice" in the case of any discussion of a nature is unremarkable and inconsequential. It's like complaining that there are no pink ponies on Mars or no popsicles in the Marianas Trench.

What would you expect? Nothing "chooses it's nature," and choice is not an important or relevant quality in any discusson of the nature of something.

P.S. -- Interestingly, I note you didn't want to talk about the incoherencies of that in the case of "Jenner." Still, can you not see them?

[Astro Cat]

If I create a sentient and sapient AI, that AI is its own being: it is not obligated to fulfill my wishes. That’s just slavery with extra steps.

But in the world you describe, slavery itself is not "wrong."

But all this is speculative: there is no such thing as AI -- not really. And if it ever happens, then maybe there will be moral questions...provided my worldview is true...

Not in yours.

In the world I describe, people will still have values against slavery, and they will probably be in the majority in today's world.

Plus I do not believe the argument “creations must fulfill the wishes of their creators” has substance; it has the feeling of a preference, not a truth. Can you argue for its truth?

Where did you take that "quotation" from? I don't think it's from me.

But your question is really, "Does the creature have a duty to fulfill the Creator's wishes." And my answer to that is, "Of course."

For you are not self-created. Your design is not your own. And you have no power at all to give yourself life. You are, instead, part of a divine plan, a fixture in the beneficent intentions of a loving God...blessed to have the opportunity to discover all the wonderful potentials He has put in you, and endowed with your own volition and choices. You owe your Creator, at least, your gratitude; but if you want to be all that you can be, you also owe Him your love and your service in the purposes He has prepared you to fulfill. You have a mission, a calling, a purpose in this world; and it is not merely to gratify your animal desires and then die.

(Emphasis added)

The quotations were only meant as a paraphrase, sorry if that needs to be more explicit. Do you see how your argument here is a hypothetical imperative from the bolded text?

Do you have an argument for why it would be true that a creation has a duty to fulfill a creator's wishes outside of a hypothetical imperative? To be absolutely clear, no if/then statements.

Hypothetical imperative oughts make sense. But the moral realist position is that oughts exist which are not formed on hypothetical imperatives. So, ought a creation to obey its creators wishes because of the fact that the creator created them? I don't think you can establish that that's "true." I think you maybe intuit it (I don't), but I don't think there's an argument you can make for its truth.

Morality is importantly involved in this. There are ways you are to treat God's creation, and all the people He has put in it. They are not at your disposal to use or abuse as you might feel inclined. They, too, are dignified creatures, each with his or her own best destiny. And you have been gifted with free volition and creativity to use in the actualizing of all that is best in this world and in other people. Now, you are offered the opportunity as well to enter into an eternal relationship with your Creator -- of your own free will, of course -- so that you may achieve things you never imagined possible and become a much better kind of person than you ever imagined you could be.

This still doesn't answer why we ought to behave as God intends us to. You are making implicit hypothetical imperatives (if you value dignity, then you ought not despoil it. If you value being what God thinks is a better kind of person, then you ought to do what God says). But what if a person doesn't value these things? I'm not even saying that I don't: I do value things like dignity, and life, and happiness, and so on.

But you aren't answering why we ought to do these things. You're only forming hypothetical imperatives that point out that if we value X, then we ought to do Y. But that isn't the moral realist position. The moral realist position is just that we ought to do X: that it doesn't matter if we value X or not, we just ought to do it. Something about the universe means we ought to. But I don't think you can define what that means (and I don't mean just you personally, IC, I think you're doing fine as an arguer; I mean general "you" as in anyone). Every time you try, you just give either outright hypothetical imperatives or implied hypothetical imperatives ("your life would be really nice if you did this" -- this is an implied hypothetical imperative, because you have to value that "niceness" by that standard to feel you ought to do that. It's like saying "if you want a nice life you ought to be a lawyer," but if a person doesn't value the kind of life a lawyer leads, they do not have a duty to be a lawyer even if their parents want them to).

So, can you explain why anyone ought to do what God intends? Not because their life would be nice (according to God's definition of nice, I might add) if they did, no more hypothetical imperatives: we must know why they ought to, period. Because that's what moral realism entails: it is oughts that don't require hypothetical imperatives to be true.

The question is, do you want any of that? Or are you going to misread it as some kind of "enslavement," even though slaves never have a choice, and are rarely invited to bring their own creativity and personality to bear on anything the "master" wants. Are you going to take what is offered you, or refuse it and live on your own terms?

It is slavery, yes, to assume that a creation ought to do what the creator wants just because the creator a) wants it and b) created the creation. I don't see any connect between (a) and (b). Even by conventional forms of "owing" someone for a service or something, the creation never asked to be created; the creator took that upon themselves. If the creation ought to comply with the creator's wishes, someone would need to argue why that is true and they'd need to do it without using any hypothetical imperatives. I don't think anyone can.

Now I happen to value things like thankfulness. If God created me and the world I exist in then I am thankful for the gift of existence (though I would be annoyed at God for all the people that have had much worse ones than me despite His power, but the PoE is for another time). But I don't think I have any duty to do what God wants just because God created me: I am my own being with my own wants and my own values. If I created an AI, I would not expect the AI to have to follow my desires for its own life. I would of course encourage it to follow my values like one would to a child they're rearing, but if the AI is the equivalent of an adult that can make its own decisions, it doesn't owe me the sort of duty where it must follow my wishes for its life. If I want it to be the best baker bot in the world but it wants to write poetry, that is its prerogative and it doesn't owe me even the consideration of being a baker bot. (Now it might value my opinion, and so desire to at least give baking a shot, but that's it's own choice. That's a hypothetical imperative. It doesn't have some naked, hypothetical-less duty to follow my desires).

You can argue “if you value things like living a healthy life, then you ought to do what God says.” But that is a hypothetical imperative.

I didn't argue that. I just told you what will happen with one choice and with the other. I put on you no "imperative," but rather offer you the free choice.

However, all choices have consequences. And the free choice to reject relationship with the ultimate Source of all life, light, health, joy, purpose, and love is going to have consequences. It's a choice one can make: so long as one also is content to receive the consequences that naturally follow with each choice.

That's what freedom and volition entail. It means you get choice. It doesn't mean all choices are good, or that all choices are pain-free. It means that you get the choice with it's consequences.

OK, then I grant that there is a choice. But the question was why ought I follow God's wishes for my life?

Let us leave all hypothetical imperatives and consequences (which are implied imperatives: you should do this if you want to avoid that, etc.) out of it and just answer: why ought I do as God wishes?

We can say "because what God wishes is good." OK. But why is it good? We can say "because God's nature is good." OK. But what does it mean for God's nature to be good? What is goodness? We've never gotten past this question. I get answers of the form "goodness is what God desires for us" (this is a paraphrase!), but that's viciously circular: God's nature is to be good, so God desires us to do good, but what is good? The answer can't be that which God desires for us! That's viciously circular.

So what is goodness? This is the same question as "what is an ought?" I say over and over that God seems to have little to do with defining what it is (since God is subject to it, God is following it, not creating it, not defining it), but God keeps coming up and I'm ultimately not getting answers. What is goodness, what is an ought? Without hypothetical imperatives, without consequences, without talking about what God desires: what are they?

No, because you argued that God has a nature (to be good), which I pointed out that God couldn’t have had a choice...

And I pointed out that "choice" has nothing to do with "nature" for anybody ever. That's a category error.

So the absence of "choice" in the case of any discussion of a nature is unremarkable and inconsequential. It's like complaining that there are no pink ponies on Mars or no popsicles in the Marianas Trench.

What would you expect? Nothing "chooses it's nature," and choice is not an important or relevant quality in any discusson of the nature of something.

It's extremely important because every time I ask what an ought is, or what goodness is, you bring up something that's extremely parallel to choice: you bring up God's wishes for us. So I have to remark that God's wishes don't have anything to do with defining what "good" is because God only has good wishes because God has a good nature. But that means God isn't defining what "good" is, God is just following it.

So I point this out. Then I ask "ok, so God is just doing good things because God has a good nature. What is goodness?" But as soon as I ask this, we start talking about God's wishes again. I know you're not doing it on purpose, I'm not annoyed or anything (I'm still enjoying this discussion), but maybe that helps you to understand why I keep underlining this point that:

1) God has a nature to be good
2) God didn't choose that nature
C) God's intentions, beliefs, etc. don't define goodness; goodness defines what God is rather than God defining what goodness is

Thanks to (C), when we ask "what is goodness?" or "what is an ought?" we can't start talking about God's desires, God's desires must be entirely irrelevant to defining what goodness or oughts are! God is just following His nature as surely as an AI following its programming is. In fact, let me just use that as an analogy.

Let's say that I program an AI and let's say that the AI is "good" because of its programming. The AI chooses not to hurt people because that's the way it's programmed to think, it's not capable of having a thought about harming humans. But perhaps it can think about what it wants to do today, or who to hang out with: it makes choices. It's just limited from making choices that are harmful to humans.

Now we might say, "this is a good robot." But can you see how the robot has nothing to do with what goodness is? The robot doesn't define goodness, it's defined by it. The ultimate explanation for what goodness is lies somewhere transcendental to the robot. We can't define what goodness is based on the actions of the robot because the robot is subject to goodness, it doesn't define goodness, it's not the source of goodness: it's just following what is good, it just agrees that not hurting humans is good.

So, likewise with God. If God has a nature which is good, and that goodness is why God makes good choices, then God's choices have nothing to do with defining what goodness is. God is defined by what is good, and not the other way around. So when someone asks "what is good?" it doesn't do any good (heh, unfortunate choice of words) to just talk about what God wants or desires. To answer what goodness is, we have to answer why God's nature is good: what it means for God's nature to be good. And God's actions will never have anything to do with that, they are just a consequence of whatever "good" is.

P.S. -- Interestingly, I note you didn't want to talk about the incoherencies of that in the case of "Jenner." Still, can you not see them?

Well, I feel like a lot of that was discussed in the essentialism thread. My answer is of course the same: that trans people aren't under the illusion they're changing a biological sex reality, but are affecting a societal construction called gender which is just about societal expectations and not about chromosomes. That still responds to this.

[Belinda]

I agree with Astro Cat and claim God cannot be otherwise than He was, is, and shall be. It follows that God is not an entity that chooses good or evil , because evil is not a possibility for God.

God , like existence itself, is uncaused , which is what is meant by "God is the ground of being".

It's when bossy people claim God has personally told them a precise moral code that theism is a problem for all but the ruling class.

[FlashDangerpants]

Are you still entertained by the honeymoon?

Not gonna lie, I don't really bother following religious debates, I'm a natural atheist with no giant religion shaped hole in my life. So I'm not going to spot much of what happens in this convo. Has he presented any of his completely believable Solomonic parables where people seek his wisdom from all corners of the Earth yet? I like those.

It looks like the little bit at the end of every post where you each express your surprise and delight to be having such a civil conversation has ended, I hope that is because it came to a natural end not because some silly English bastard mocked it?

[Immanuel Can]

If I create a sentient and sapient AI, that AI is its own being: it is not obligated to fulfill my wishes. That’s just slavery with extra steps.

But in the world you describe, slavery itself is not "wrong."

But all this is speculative: there is no such thing as AI -- not really. And if it ever happens, then maybe there will be moral questions...provided my worldview is true...

Not in yours.

In the world I describe, people will still have values against slavery, and they will probably be in the majority in today's world.

Actually, there are more slaves, in worse conditions, today than at any time in history. Sex slavery, for example, is really huge...human trafficking, sweat shops, and regular chattel slavery still exists and is very active in places like North Africa. And that does not even get into the deplorable conditions of women in the Middle East.

So the majority of the world has social practices favourable to slavery, actually. And historically, that's always been true. By every dimension, slavery is an ancient and approved practice.

Not that it matters. Morality is not a popularity poll, of course. But we must also ask what it means that Astro Cat happens not to value slavery, or happens to value freedom. If it's just her, that is nothing against slavery...unless she's actually, objectively right about slavery being evil.

Plus I do not believe the argument “creations must fulfill the wishes of their creators” has substance; it has the feeling of a preference, not a truth. Can you argue for its truth?

Where did you take that "quotation" from? I don't think it's from me.

But your question is really, "Does the creature have a duty to fulfill the Creator's wishes." And my answer to that is, "Of course."

For you are not self-created. Your design is not your own. And you have no power at all to give yourself life. You are, instead, part of a divine plan, a fixture in the beneficent intentions of a loving God...blessed to have the opportunity to discover all the wonderful potentials He has put in you, and endowed with your own volition and choices. You owe your Creator, at least, your gratitude; but if you want to be all that you can be, you also owe Him your love and your service in the purposes He has prepared you to fulfill. You have a mission, a calling, a purpose in this world; and it is not merely to gratify your animal desires and then die.

(Emphasis added)

The quotations were only meant as a paraphrase, sorry if that needs to be more explicit. Do you see how your argument here is a hypothetical imperative from the bolded text?

You make too much of that. My argument goes, "This is the right thing AND it will make you happier," not "This is the right thing BECAUSE it will make you happier."

Again the word "because," interpretively inserted there, is the problem. I'm not saying you ought because "if" you do it will make you happy. That would be a poor rationale for anything but egoism or hedonism, plausibly...or perhaps for utilitarianism, if the quantities were weighed. I'm none of those, and make no such argument.

Do you have an argument for why it would be true that a creation has a duty to fulfill a creator's wishes outside of a hypothetical imperative? To be absolutely clear, no if/then statements.

It is above. There are plenty of reasons given there. Simply understand the "if" as implying a bonus consequence, not a cause of "oughtness."

Hypothetical imperative oughts make sense.

I really don't see that they do.

A hypothetical of the kind you indict above would be impossible to rationalize, unless you already know what the teleological goal in view is. If you know, already, for certain, that the point of life is to "be happy," say, then one can say "if" and "then" with a view to that teleological goal...and one may plausibly even be right about the instrumental connection one is positing. But the point worth debating, and the one that makes any case for hypotheticals, is the teleological goal itself.

Is our purpose to gratify our own urges? Is that why we're here, on this planet? You'll have to make that case for me, because it doesn't seem obvious either from a Theistic or a secular viewpoint. From a Theistic one, we're here to know God, of course; but even rejecting that, we can't say it suddenly becomes obvious we're here to gratify ourselves, either. In actuality, secularly speaking, being on a mudball in space that is an accident in origin (the Big Bang) and is proceeding by entropy toward inevitable Heat Death and extinction, it's much more obvious that we have no purpose or teleology at all -- that NOTHING is guaranteed to us, that life has no actual point (even if we are terrified and make one up to console ourselves), and that "if" and "because" are merely temporal instrumental, and probabilistic, and in no way genuinely moral at all.

But the moral realist position is that oughts exist which are not formed on hypothetical imperatives. So, ought a creation to obey its creators wishes because of the fact that the creator created them? I don't think you can establish that that's "true." I think you maybe intuit it (I don't), but I don't think there's an argument you can make for its truth.

Well, as above, there's much more to be said than merely that.

But it's at least prima facie a good argument, and requires some sort of refutation. After all, if the creator of an entity does not, in any sense, "own" it, then is there any other candidate who plausibly does? I don't think there is. The creation certainly does not come into existence by its own volition and plan, with its own papers in hand, guaranteed total autonomy from its creator by dint of...what?

Even intuitively, that makes no sense. And I can't see a counterargument even available there. Who is the rival owner?

Morality is importantly involved in this. There are ways you are to treat God's creation, and all the people He has put in it. They are not at your disposal to use or abuse as you might feel inclined. They, too, are dignified creatures, each with his or her own best destiny. And you have been gifted with free volition and creativity to use in the actualizing of all that is best in this world and in other people. Now, you are offered the opportunity as well to enter into an eternal relationship with your Creator -- of your own free will, of course -- so that you may achieve things you never imagined possible and become a much better kind of person than you ever imagined you could be.

This still doesn't answer why we ought to behave as God intends us to. You are making implicit hypothetical imperatives... [/quote]
As above, I'm not, actually. Rather, I think you'll find you're reading them in. They are not intended as instrumental arguments.

For example, I did not write, or imply, "if you value dignity, then you ought not despoil it." I simply said that God assigns all of His creation its relative roles and dignity, and one who disrespects that is afoul of morality and out of step with the reality of things. I can assume you wish to be neither. But the choice always remains our own.

Every time you try, you just give either outright hypothetical imperatives or implied hypothetical imperatives ("your life would be really nice if you did this" -- this is an implied hypothetical imperative...

[Emphasis mine]
There it is. The "implication" is being drawn, rather than being mine. I neither intended it nor implied it myself.

I trust that clears that up. Let us proceed.

You can argue “if you value things like living a healthy life, then you ought to do what God says.” But that is a hypothetical imperative.

I didn't argue that. I just told you what will happen with one choice and with the other. I put on you no "imperative," but rather offer you the free choice.

However, all choices have consequences. And the free choice to reject relationship with the ultimate Source of all life, light, health, joy, purpose, and love is going to have consequences. It's a choice one can make: so long as one also is content to receive the consequences that naturally follow with each choice.

That's what freedom and volition entail. It means you get choice. It doesn't mean all choices are good, or that all choices are pain-free. It means that you get the choice with it's consequences.

OK, then I grant that there is a choice. But the question was why ought I follow God's wishes for my life?

Here, it seems like you finally did see my point. Thank you for persevering with that.

Why ought Cat to run for charity, so to speak? Because it's the right thing to do, because right things are harmonious with the character of God, and Cat wishes to know God.

Or, she perhaps could choose the alternative, which is to not care about God, not to do what is harmonious with the character of God, and she would be out of step with HIm, make Him an adversary, and cut herself off from the goods that attach to God.

And she is perfectly free to do either. That, too, is a grace God has given us all -- the freedom to choose badly, so that our choice of the good may be free and genuine, and our personhood and volition may be respected and affirmed in all cases. For the one thing God values in Cat, above all, is her personhood. It's the sine qua non of genuine relationship. So she has her choices and wishes, and lives and dies by them.

We can say "because what God wishes is good." OK. But why is it good? We can say "because God's nature is good." OK. But what does it mean for God's nature to be good? What is goodness? We've never gotten past this question.

I
Well, I pointed out to you that it posits that "good" and "God" are different things. I argue that they are identical. You decline that. I don't know what we can do about that, from here.

I pointed out to you that even Socrates himself recognized that dividing "good" and "gods" was necessary to his argument. You blew by all that, and simply said it didn't matter -- though, of course, it's crucial, being essential to Socrates's very first premise.

What's the next response? I don't know. I don't know what to do with an argument that simply refuses the relevant evidence, as offered straight from the relevant text, verbatim.

So what is goodness?

God.

I keep underlining this point that:

1) God has a nature to be good
2) God didn't choose that nature

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. it's a violation of the very concept itself. It's definitionally wrong.

A "nature" isn't chosen. "Nature" means what a thing actually is, not what a thing chooses. If it were chosen, it could not, by definition, be a "nature."

Jenner did not "choose" to be born a man. He was. We both know that. Even Jenner knows that, because it's the thing he's always complaining about. His nature is that of a man. Whatever he says about himself now, it's a resistance to his nature. He's putting his choice ahead of nature. For him, they're opposites. What he's saying is, "What I feel like I am is more determinative than my basic nature." That's his claim. That's why he had to "trans." It's because his nature was not alligned with his wishes. Otherwise, he would not be "trans" at all, since "trans" implies movement from one state to another.

And he has not changed his DNA, or his fundamental body structure, or his history. And he certainly has not changed his "nature." For which reason, in any discussion of nature, he's still a "he."

So "nature" means "actual constitution," not "choices made afterward." Thus, it is nonsense to object that "God didn't choose His nature." Nobody chooses their "nature," by definition of the concept.

C) God's intentions, beliefs, etc. don't define goodness; goodness defines what God is rather than God defining what goodness is

See Socrates on that. It posits the division between good and God. That's a false dichotomy.

But I don't quite know how I can make this any clearer.

Let's say that I program an AI

No, let's keep our cases real. I think we're on better territory if we do. We know more.

AI does not exist. We have no information of what it would actually entail, if it ever did emerge. But Searle's made a good case (and the Turning Test actually concedes that case), that we can very easily be fooled by our creations. (See also the famous "Eliza" experiment, by Weizenbaum.)

If God has a nature which is good, and that goodness is why God makes good choices, then God's choices have nothing to do with defining what goodness is.

This, I think, is a fairly confused sentence. Let me point out the confusion, if I may.

God is good. God also makes good choices, because He acts out of His own nature. But goodness isn't the "because" of His choices; His essential nature is why He makes the choices He does. God always acts consistently with Himself. And that happens to be what we humans understand as "good," as well. But the "goodness" does not precede or cause God to do anything. It's an adjective, a predication of the quality of God. And it's not the only one. But adjectives do not cause things. They are caused by the thing the adjective describes.

God's nature is good. 'Good' doesn't make God do things. It's the adjective describing the quality of what God does. 'Good' is not a Platonic reality floating somewhere prior to God Himself.

Clear enough?

P.S. -- Interestingly, I note you didn't want to talk about the incoherencies of that in the case of "Jenner." Still, can you not see them?

Well, I feel like a lot of that was discussed in the essentialism thread. My answer is of course the same: that trans people aren't under the illusion they're changing a biological sex reality, but are affecting a societal construction called gender which is just about societal expectations and not about chromosomes. That still responds to this.

Ah. There it is. The "gender" you say, is a "social construction." The nature is not. You call it "a biological sex reality." Fine, use your own words. But nature is not "societal expectations," as you put it, either. Nature is involved in what Jenner is resisting...not merely the body shape and the chromosomes, but in Jenner's own recognized and admitted history as a male decathlete, and not only in that but in the very constitution of what Jenner was made to be. That's "nature."

Ironically, Jenner also wants us to believe that unless he is affirmed in resisting his nature, that would be...unnatural, because he's "really" a "woman." But what can that "really" imply, other than that Jenner wants to think that feelings, not nature, is determinative of identity? It cannot be otherwise, or he loses his grounds of appeal for a right and necessity to "trans."

Such are the incoherencies of transing.

Now, I know that thought offends the present PC thought of your group. But consider whether or not it should. For lesbianism itself is threatened by transing, as the very pro-lesbian Dr. Debra Soh has so importantly pointed out.

If young women feel unconventional in their bodies, that is capable of two competing interpretations, even within the "community": one is that she's a lesbian, the other is that she's a man. Outside of that "community," of course, it's capable of other interpretations; but let's stay local on that.

How should young women understand their natural adolescent dysphoric experiences? Should they consider themselves lesbians or men? That's not an easy divide to make. But the consequences to the subsequent path are substantial. Should young women hack off their female features, or celebrate them, for example? To what "subcommunity" should they belong...the one that loves womanhood, or the one that wants to avoid being one at all costs?

This problem has not yet hit the group, since they're so busy hating the "heteronormatives" that they have no time for deeper thought, and keep making alliances that make no sense, so long as they're "anti-heteronormative" ones. But the piper will have to be paid one day. I wonder how that will work out...but "nature" will be an important guide, then.

Best we do not debase the concept now, don't you think? We are going to need it later.

[Astro Cat]

Actually, there are more slaves, in worse conditions, today than at any time in history. Sex slavery, for example, is really huge...human trafficking, sweat shops, and regular chattel slavery still exists and is very active in places like North Africa. And that does not even get into the deplorable conditions of women in the Middle East.

So the majority of the world has social practices favourable to slavery, actually. And historically, that's always been true. By every dimension, slavery is an ancient and approved practice.

Not that it matters. Morality is not a popularity poll, of course. But we must also ask what it means that Astro Cat happens not to value slavery, or happens to value freedom. If it's just her, that is nothing against slavery...unless she's actually, objectively right about slavery being evil.

Mm, which is really troubling that it's still so prevalent in many places.

However, I do have the thought that perhaps if less people mistakenly thought there was a moral realism, more people would do something about it?

I am reminded of the massive meme phenomenon where my generation pokes fun at people that offer their "thoughts and prayers." The general form of the sentiment is that offering thoughts and prayers doesn't actually do anything. It infuriates us when something bad happens and all that seems to happen is a bunch of people offering their thoughts and prayers.

This sort of has that feel: the prevalence of moral realistic beliefs seems directly related to this phenomenon. Rather than doing anything, people offer their "thoughts and prayers" because they believe there is something about the universe that will correct things like social problems. They don't have to take action because moral realism is true, and something about the universe (be it God or whatever) will take care of the problem (presumably in the afterlife).

Now, of course I'm not saying that it's a necessary consequence of moral realism to take no action. It's just an observation that people use it as justification to take no action.

I do wonder about your last sentence: "If it's just her, that is nothing against slavery... unless she's actually, objectively right about slavery being evil." That seems to suggest that if slavery is evil, then that is something "against" slavery. Yet the moral realist believes this is a world of moral realism and slavery still exists, what's "against" it*? What comfort is punishing slavers in an afterlife to slaves now? I guess I just don't get why that is a point in realism's favor. It doesn't seem to do anything that actually helps slaves. It's like saying "thoughts and prayers" to say "don't worry, that slavery is wrong is cognitive and a truth." Small consolation to the slave.

(* -- I understand moral realism doesn't entail that suffering wouldn't exist, but then what does this mean?)

You make too much of that. My argument goes, "This is the right thing AND it will make you happier," not "This is the right thing BECAUSE it will make you happier."

Again the word "because," interpretively inserted there, is the problem. I'm not saying you ought because "if" you do it will make you happy. That would be a poor rationale for anything but egoism or hedonism, plausibly...or perhaps for utilitarianism, if the quantities were weighed. I'm none of those, and make no such argument.

Do you have an argument for why it would be true that a creation has a duty to fulfill a creator's wishes outside of a hypothetical imperative? To be absolutely clear, no if/then statements.

It is above. There are plenty of reasons given there. Simply understand the "if" as implying a bonus consequence, not a cause of "oughtness."

But there wasn't an answer above. Let me re-quote what you originally said:

But your question is really, "Does the creature have a duty to fulfill the Creator's wishes." And my answer to that is, "Of course."

For you are not self-created. Your design is not your own. And you have no power at all to give yourself life. You are, instead, part of a divine plan, a fixture in the beneficent intentions of a loving God...blessed to have the opportunity to discover all the wonderful potentials He has put in you, and endowed with your own volition and choices. You owe your Creator, at least, your gratitude; but if you want to be all that you can be, you also owe Him your love and your service in the purposes He has prepared you to fulfill. You have a mission, a calling, a purpose in this world; and it is not merely to gratify your animal desires and then die.

So the responses to the question "does a creation have a duty to fulfill a creator's wishes" appear from this response to be, in order:

1) The creation is not self-created
2) The creation did not design themselves
3) The creation did not have the power to give themselves life
4) The creation is a part of the creator's plan
5) The creation has the opportunity to discover the potentials the creator provided them
6) The creation is endowed with volition and choices
7) The creation owes the creator gratitude
(Skipping the hypothetical imperative "if you want to be all you can be...")
The creation has a mission/calling/purpose, and it is not to gratify their animal desires and then die

Not a single one of these answers the question. Consider (1): the creation is not self-created. Ok, but why does that mean the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes? There's no argument here. We should have something like:
P1) The creation is not self-created
P2) ??????????????????
C) Therefore, the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes

Where's the argument on any of these? Not a single one of them goes from a premise to the conclusion asked for.

We might try something like:
P1) The creation is not self-created
P2) The creator did the creation a service by creating them
P3) Those for whom a service has been done owe the one that did them the service
C) Therefore, the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes

But I don't think that works. The creation didn't ask to be created, they didn't invite the service: the creator took that upon themselves. Consider the stereotypical Hollywood idea that appears in some movies where a homeless man walks up to a car parked at a stoplight to wash their windshield without permission: does the driver owe the homeless man anything because of this act? I think most of us intuitively reject that idea because the service was uninvited. Or, I am reminded of men that go well out of their way to do things for women that they didn't ask for and expect something in return (usually sex): she doesn't owe him any such thing, he made choices to do what he did and then to expect her to "owe" him is the worst sort of entitlement.

Also, I think that P3 could simply be rejected (conceivably) as it seems value-based and subjective. Perhaps someone doesn't value owing the renderer of a service anything even when asked for, after all, thieves exist. The arguer would also probably have to make a sub-argument that P3 is true.

Reviewing all 8 lines, not a single one of them presents an argument. I can see perhaps some implied arguments, I can take stabs at making some arguments, but they are all weak. What sorts of arguments can you make, I wonder?

Hypothetical imperative oughts make sense.

I really don't see that they do.

A hypothetical of the kind you indict above would be impossible to rationalize, unless you already know what the teleological goal in view is. If you know, already, for certain, that the point of life is to "be happy," say, then one can say "if" and "then" with a view to that teleological goal...and one may plausibly even be right about the instrumental connection one is positing. But the point worth debating, and the one that makes any case for hypotheticals, is the teleological goal itself.

Is our purpose to gratify our own urges? Is that why we're here, on this planet? You'll have to make that case for me, because it doesn't seem obvious either from a Theistic or a secular viewpoint. From a Theistic one, we're here to know God, of course; but even rejecting that, we can't say it suddenly becomes obvious we're here to gratify ourselves, either. In actuality, secularly speaking, being on a mudball in space that is an accident in origin (the Big Bang) and is proceeding by entropy toward inevitable Heat Death and extinction, it's much more obvious that we have no purpose or teleology at all -- that NOTHING is guaranteed to us, that life has no actual point (even if we are terrified and make one up to console ourselves), and that "if" and "because" are merely temporal instrumental, and probabilistic, and in no way genuinely moral at all.

Well, you assume that we have a purpose, which is really adjacent I think to this whole discussion (intrinsic purpose and true oughts seem relevantly parallel to me). I think the onus would be on you to show that there is an intrinsic purpose to us being alive as I'm simply skeptical of that. My view is somewhere between existentialism and absurdism where I don't believe there is an intrinsic purpose, but there can be the pursuit of purpose.

But the moral realist position is that oughts exist which are not formed on hypothetical imperatives. So, ought a creation to obey its creators wishes because of the fact that the creator created them? I don't think you can establish that that's "true." I think you maybe intuit it (I don't), but I don't think there's an argument you can make for its truth.

Well, as above, there's much more to be said than merely that.

But it's at least prima facie a good argument, and requires some sort of refutation. After all, if the creator of an entity does not, in any sense, "own" it, then is there any other candidate who plausibly does? I don't think there is. The creation certainly does not come into existence by its own volition and plan, with its own papers in hand, guaranteed total autonomy from its creator by dint of...what?

Even intuitively, that makes no sense. And I can't see a counterargument even available there. Who is the rival owner?

I am somewhat confused why there appears to be this hidden premise that agents must have "owners." Rather than asking, "does anyone own free agents?" you ask "if it isn't their creator, then who owns them?"

I think that people do not have owners intrinsically (created or not, so I am not just talking about humans when I say "people"), or it could be said that they "own" themselves, whatever this concept of ownership means (which is probably a good question I should be asking: what does it mean to own someone in this context you're talking about?)

People have autonomy; the only thing that prevents people from having autonomy is other agents stepping in and stopping them from having it. Nobody has to "grant" a person autonomy, it isn't a positive thing that's given, rather the problem happens in its negation when someone stops someone from having it.

So we might suggest that a creator enables a creation to have autonomy, but it would then self-contradict to say that the creation doesn't actually have autonomy because it "owes" the creator its wishes. And my argument still stands that there is a chasm of argument between "creator makes creation" and "creation owes creator their wishes."

This still doesn't answer why we ought to behave as God intends us to. You are making implicit hypothetical imperatives...

As above, I'm not, actually. Rather, I think you'll find you're reading them in. They are not intended as instrumental arguments.

For example, I did not write, or imply, "if you value dignity, then you ought not despoil it." I simply said that God assigns all of His creation its relative roles and dignity, and one who disrespects that is afoul of morality and out of step with the reality of things. I can assume you wish to be neither. But the choice always remains our own.

Ok, fair enough. Your meaning is more clear to me then.

OK, then I grant that there is a choice. But the question was why ought I follow God's wishes for my life?

Here, it seems like you finally did see my point. Thank you for persevering with that.

Why ought Cat to run for charity, so to speak? Because it's the right thing to do, because right things are harmonious with the character of God, and Cat wishes to know God.

Or, she perhaps could choose the alternative, which is to not care about God, not to do what is harmonious with the character of God, and she would be out of step with HIm, make Him an adversary, and cut herself off from the goods that attach to God.

And she is perfectly free to do either. That, too, is a grace God has given us all -- the freedom to choose badly, so that our choice of the good may be free and genuine, and our personhood and volition may be respected and affirmed in all cases. For the one thing God values in Cat, above all, is her personhood. It's the sine qua non of genuine relationship. So she has her choices and wishes, and lives and dies by them.

Ok, to the question "why ought Cat run for charity?" I see the following responses:

1) Because it's the right thing to do
2) Because right things are harmonious with the character of God
3) Cat wishes to know God

For (1): But the question "why ought Cat run for charity" isn't answered by "because it's the right thing to do." These are just the same statement, or at least corollaries: "It is right for Cat to run for charity" and "Cat ought to run for charity." The questioner is still scratching their heads wondering what that means. What does it mean for it to be the right thing to do if there's not a hypothetical imperative?

For (2): If I try to say, "Cat ought to run for charity because it would be harmonious with the character of God" doesn't tell me why she ought to, though, unless I form the hypothetical imperative "if Cat values the character of God, then she ought to do something harmonious with that character." How do we get the ought if we do not build this hypothetical imperative? Again, the argument seems entirely missing here.

For (3): Yet again I don't see an argument here, I see maybe a premise; a dubious one at that (Cat isn't convinced God exists, though we can be charitable and say it might be true since Cat is interested in learning truth; so if God exists, than it would follow she might wish to know God).

The trend overall here is that when I ask "why ought Cat do X," I'm not getting arguments back: I'm getting circular definitions or things that only seem to work if I construct a hypothetical imperative with them.

We can say "because what God wishes is good." OK. But why is it good? We can say "because God's nature is good." OK. But what does it mean for God's nature to be good? What is goodness? We've never gotten past this question.

I
Well, I pointed out to you that it posits that "good" and "God" are different things. I argue that they are identical. You decline that. I don't know what we can do about that, from here.

Oh! I may have misunderstood you, then. So, your argument is that good and God are identical, they are the same thing? Goodness is a being with properties like personhood, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.? Nothing makes goodness a distinct concept from God, goodness = God?

Are you a proponent of Divine Simplicity, where rather than having a nature, God is identical to His nature? (It's noncognitive utter nonsense, but I need to make sure where you're coming from?)

Would you agree with the statement, "God doesn't have the property of being good, God is goodness?"

I have so, so much to say about this if that's your position -- SO much (such as the fact that if you are a Divine Simplicitist and you think goodness = God that you actually must be a DCT proponent because that's a consequence) -- but I need to make sure that's what you're saying first?

God is good. God also makes good choices,

Ok, but God can't both be goodness and be good. If goodness = God, then the latter sentence you've typed here is just "God also makes God choices," which is nonsense. Either goodness is a property that God possesses and has a definition, or God "is" goodness (which we will have to get into if that is your position because it's a whole pile of noncognitive nonsense). You can't have both.

because He acts out of His own nature. But goodness isn't the "because" of His choices; His essential nature is why He makes the choices He does. God always acts consistently with Himself. And that happens to be what we humans understand as "good," as well. But the "goodness" does not precede or cause God to do anything. It's an adjective, a predication of the quality of God. And it's not the only one. But adjectives do not cause things. They are caused by the thing the adjective describes.

Wait, is goodness a quality of God or is goodness God? We are going to have to clear up your position on this in exacting terms, because this is confusing.

[Astro Cat]

Here I aim to pre-emptively take care of claims like "God is goodness." It is unclear whether you just propose that goodness is the only property that's identical with God or whether you claim that all of God's properties are identical with God (Divine Simplicity) since I'm being a little trigger happy and responding before you've had a chance to clear that up, but maybe this will make for entertaining reading anyway.

First I'd like to start with a quote from our friend Plantinga in defense of God having distinct properties/a distinct nature (i.e., God's nature not being identical to Himself) which are conceptualizable by us:

Now suppose we return to the question whether our concepts apply to God. It is a piece of sheer confusion to say that there is such a person as God, but none of our concepts apply to him. If our concepts do not apply to God, then he does not have such properties as wisdom, being almighty and being the creator of the heavens and the earth. Our concept of wisdom applies to a being if that being is wise; so a being to whom this concept did not apply would not be wise, whatever else it might be.

If, therefore, our concepts do not apply to God, then our concepts of being loving, almighty, wise, creator and Redeemer do not apply to him, in which case he is not loving, almighty, wise, a creator or a Redeemer. He won't have any of the properties Christians ascribe to him. In fact he won't have any of the properties of which we have concepts. He will not have such properties as self-identity, existence, and being either a material object or an immaterial object, these being properties of which we have concepts.

Indeed, he won't have the property of being the referent of the term 'God,' or any other term; our concept being the referent of a term does not apply to him. The fact is this being won't have any properties at all, since our concept of having at least one property does not apply to him. But how could there be such a thing?"

(Alvin Plantinga, "Does God Have A Nature?", pp. 22-23)

I want to take away from Plantinga's lengthy quote here that God must be sensible in some sense for us to even mean anything when we make the utterance "God," otherwise we're barking at the moon.

Now, a lot of our discussion has centered around God's nature and what it means for God to be good. I've spent some time arguing that if God's nature is to be good, then God doesn't define that goodness. I needn't repeat that here, but I pointed this out because it was important when asking questions like "what is good" and whether God had anything to do with the answer. I have since seen that you answered that goodness = God: not just that God is good as in has the property of goodness, but that goodness is identical to God. This has a lot of immediate (and poor) consequences.

For one thing, goodness is generally understood to be a property. Things are good if they possess goodness, this is similar to length being a property. You will never find "length" out there in the universe, you will only find things which possess length because it is a property. If God = goodness though, it means either that the arguer is saying God is a property or that goodness isn't a property (it certainly can't be both), and this is a category of confusion I'm not sure the arguer is prepared to deal with.

They'd be in interesting company on this point, though: we can actually go back to Aquinas and find him wringing his hands over this very worry about God and goodness. Aquinas worried that if God has the property of being good, then that fact is beyond God's control and Aquinas found that unacceptable. He said,

...each good thing that is not its goodness is called good by participation. But that which is named by participation has something prior to it from which it receives the character of goodness. This cannot proceed to infinity, since among final causes there is no regress to infinity ... We must therefore reach some first good, that is not by participation good through an order towards some other good, but is good through its own essence. This is God. God is therefore His own goodness.

(Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Contra Gentiles" I 38)

There are some deeply troubling problems here:

One: That the "problem" Aquinas worries about ("participating" in a property rather than being "identical" to a property) applies to all of God's properties, not just goodness: it applies to God being wise, to God being powerful, etc. But we cannot then just throw our arms up and say that God is identical to wisdom and identical to power because then we're in a real pickle: if God is identical to goodness, and God is identical to wisdom, then it means that goodness is identical to wisdom, and wisdom is identical to power, and so on: these words lose all of their meaning whatsoever because they're all identical to each other; and God ends up with no essential properties (and doesn't even have the property of "being the referent of the term 'God'").

So either one is OK with God "participating" in properties (i.e., possessing properties in the normal sense) or one is doomed to a whole soup of confusion that critics can simply dismiss as noncognitive nonsense without a second thought: the word "God" wouldn't even mean anything, and words like "wisdom" and "power" and "goodness" would all mean the same thing, which is to say they would mean nothing. This is why I quoted Plantinga on this above, as he says it more eloquently than I could. Plantinga rejects Aquinas's feeble attempt to "rescue" God from having a property like goodness ("participating" in it), and you should too.

Two: Perhaps the arguer (you, in this case) never meant that God is identical to properties, but that goodness was never a property in the first place. Perhaps every time anyone says "goodness" they just mean "in congruence with God's nature," such that utterances like "X is good" really just mean "X is Godly" or "X is reminiscent of God."

This, too, breaks down into a pile of nonsense, because the question has to be asked: in what way is X reminiscent of God? God is wise, for instance, and we don't call it "good" when someone is wise (not necessarily, anyway: someone we might call "evil" may also be wise) even though that's ostensibly "God-like" or "Godly" to be wise. God is powerful, so being powerful is "God-like" or "Godly," and we don't call being powerful "good."

We might try to amend the situation by clarifying that "X is good" really means "X is in alignment with God's wishes." Then we don't have to worry about whether things that share properties with God are "good" unless they specifically deal with how God might react to a given situation.

But, can you not see that this leads to Divine Command Theory as a direct result, and have you not already explicitly rejected Divine Command Theory? If X is good only because X is in alignment with God's wishes, then it is good because God wishes it. We are back at Euthyphro's fork in this instance and we have to ask:

Is X good because God wishes it? Then Divine Command Theory is true.
Does God wish X because it is good? Then "good" is a property and our entire supposition that "goodness is not a property and really just means to be in union with God" is out the window.

And obviously if we say "X is good and God wishes X" is unnecessary because "X is good" is the only important part, that God also wishes it is extraneous.

So if "goodness" is not its own property and just means to be in alignment with God, you either need to get real comfortable with Divine Command Theory real fast, or you've contradicted yourself.

[Immanuel Can]

Actually, there are more slaves, in worse conditions, today than at any time in history. Sex slavery, for example, is really huge...human trafficking, sweat shops, and regular chattel slavery still exists and is very active in places like North Africa. And that does not even get into the deplorable conditions of women in the Middle East.

So the majority of the world has social practices favourable to slavery, actually. And historically, that's always been true. By every dimension, slavery is an ancient and approved practice.

Not that it matters. Morality is not a popularity poll, of course. But we must also ask what it means that Astro Cat happens not to value slavery, or happens to value freedom. If it's just her, that is nothing against slavery...unless she's actually, objectively right about slavery being evil.

Mm, which is really troubling that it's still so prevalent in many places.

However, I do have the thought that perhaps if less people mistakenly thought there was a moral realism, more people would do something about it?

It was certainly a lot of evangelical Protestant thinking that was involved in Abolitionism, both in the UK and in the American case. So you might be right. Still, that's only a sort of instrumental argument...it's like we're saying, "People should believe in something we think is untrue, merely because it has effects we like." And that involves the unsavoury business of lying to people and indoctrinating them, which I think both you and I would regard as at least personally distasteful, if not also morally reprehensible.

However, there's a problem for us underneath even that one. And that is, if you and I are going to engage in indoctrinating people, even for what we believe to be "the social good," then how do you and I know that the cause into which we are indoctrinating them (say, antipathy to slavery) is actually a good or moral cause, if we have no objective moral grounds of our own? How do we know that our conception of "the social good" is actually "good" at all?

Because we like it? Because we feel it is? Because we think everybody should think like we do? Those are awfully weak, selfish and provincial rationales for imposing a belief on others, especially if it's one we think is false. "The social good" itself needs justification; we need to know that our conception of "the good" really is good. To impose our own "social good" arbitrarilly is actually quite tyrannical of us, and the technique is very open to abuse. So we need to be able to show it really is "the good," or else we're better not to open up that can of worms.

They don't have to take action because moral realism is true, and something about the universe (be it God or whatever) will take care of the problem (presumably in the afterlife).

You're parroting Marx there, of course. That's what he alleged when he said that "religion" was the "opium of the masses." But he was a fool in so many ways, and this is one: for any glance at the empirical facts would have banished that prejudice from him immediately.

As it turns out, what he called "religious" people have always been on the forefront of efforts for the social good. We were mentioning Abolitionism, but we might also speak of poor relief, or public schooling, or the establishment of institutions of higher learning, or hospitals, or foreign aid, or welfare programs, or addiction treatment, or prison reform...and on, and on, and on.

And the reasons for this are quite simple: since they believe in the mercy and justice of God, and since they believe all human beings are created in the image of God, Christians have always had very strong motives for acting unselfishly and mercifully toward others. Nobody is a waste product. Nobody is worthless. Nobody is ever to be simply left to die in a ditch.

When nobody cares about the poor, Christians do. When nobody cares about work conditions or lack of access to education, Christians do. When nobody dares go into malarial swamps to reach lost tribes, Christians do. When everybody thinks criminals should be left to rot, and that nobody should love them, Christians do. And when nobody wants to deal with addicts puking their way through withdrawal, or orphans, or the elderly, or the lost, Christians do.

Now, of course I'm not saying that it's a necessary consequence of moral realism to take no action. It's just an observation that people use it as justification to take no action.

But to take no action? In all my time among them, I have never seen a time when Christians were not taking action. So I think Marx badly misunderstood their thinking. And he certainly never looked at their actual behaviour.

I do wonder about your last sentence: "If it's just her, that is nothing against slavery... unless she's actually, objectively right about slavery being evil." That seems to suggest that if slavery is evil, then that is something "against" slavery. Yet the moral realist believes this is a world of moral realism and slavery still exists, what's "against" it*?

Rightness. The moral realist believes that slavery is just not right. It's ultimately offensive to God and offensive against man. It's just plain, objectively wrong.

Now, what's to be done about that? The Abolitionist movement shows us exactly what was to be done: slavery must be stopped. And so it was: not by subjectivists or relativists, but by moral objectivists grounded firmly in the conviction that injustices like that must not be allowed to persist. It was not a moral noncognitivist who arranged the banning of slavery in the British Empire; it was an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce, who gave his whole life to it, seeing it only achieved at his death. And the men who marched against the South at Antietam or Gettysburg did so to the sound of hymns, firm in the conviction that God was against slavery.

In comparison to that, tell me about the "bravery" of our modern social justice "warriors."

What comfort is punishing slavers in an afterlife to slaves now?

Some, apparently. Have you not heard the Negro spirituals? The slaves themselves found consolation in their status as beloved by God, and drew strength to endure from it.

Don't underestimate the power of faith.

Let me re-quote what you originally said:

But your question is really, "Does the creature have a duty to fulfill the Creator's wishes." And my answer to that is, "Of course."

For you are not self-created. Your design is not your own. And you have no power at all to give yourself life. You are, instead, part of a divine plan, a fixture in the beneficent intentions of a loving God...blessed to have the opportunity to discover all the wonderful potentials He has put in you, and endowed with your own volition and choices. You owe your Creator, at least, your gratitude; but if you want to be all that you can be, you also owe Him your love and your service in the purposes He has prepared you to fulfill. You have a mission, a calling, a purpose in this world; and it is not merely to gratify your animal desires and then die.

So the responses to the question "does a creation have a duty to fulfill a creator's wishes" appear from this response to be, in order:

1) The creation is not self-created
2) The creation did not design themselves
3) The creation did not have the power to give themselves life
4) The creation is a part of the creator's plan
5) The creation has the opportunity to discover the potentials the creator provided them
6) The creation is endowed with volition and choices
7) The creation owes the creator gratitude
(Skipping the hypothetical imperative "if you want to be all you can be...")
The creation has a mission/calling/purpose, and it is not to gratify their animal desires and then die

Not a single one of these answers the question. Consider (1): the creation is not self-created. Ok, but why does that mean the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes? There's no argument here. We should have something like:
P1) The creation is not self-created
P2) ??????????????????
C) Therefore, the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes

Oh? So you were looking for more than reasons; you were looking for a syllogism? Why didn't you say so?

P1 -- God is the Creator of all people.
P2 -- The Creator is the only possible ultimate owner of whatever He creates.
C -- God owns all people.

There you go. I had worded my arguments as enthymemes, which is how most people speak informally. If you wanted formality, perhaps you should have said you wanted the middle term explicitly.

We might try something like:
P1) The creation is not self-created
P2) The creator did the creation a service by creating them
P3) Those for whom a service has been done owe the one that did them the service
C) Therefore, the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes

That wouldn't work, because you can't "do a service" to something that doesn't already exist. It's also not evidently true that "service" entails debt. But something like it might be fine, if we fixed the wording.

But let's reverse the case, and see if it makes more sense. Let's suppose, for example, that you suppose that God is not the rightful owner of people...and maybe they somehow "own themselves". Perhaps you do believe it. Anyway, let's try it out.

P1 -- People are created by God
P2 --
C -- Therefore, people own themselves.

Can you make that syllogism work?

Or can you make this one work:

P1 -- People exist as a result of a cosmic accident called "the Big Bang."
P2 --
C -- Therefore, people own themselves.

Any better?

Hypothetical imperative oughts make sense.

I really don't see that they do.

A hypothetical of the kind you indict above would be impossible to rationalize, unless you already know what the teleological goal in view is. If you know, already, for certain, that the point of life is to "be happy," say, then one can say "if" and "then" with a view to that teleological goal...and one may plausibly even be right about the instrumental connection one is positing. But the point worth debating, and the one that makes any case for hypotheticals, is the teleological goal itself.

Is our purpose to gratify our own urges? Is that why we're here, on this planet? You'll have to make that case for me, because it doesn't seem obvious either from a Theistic or a secular viewpoint. From a Theistic one, we're here to know God, of course; but even rejecting that, we can't say it suddenly becomes obvious we're here to gratify ourselves, either. In actuality, secularly speaking, being on a mudball in space that is an accident in origin (the Big Bang) and is proceeding by entropy toward inevitable Heat Death and extinction, it's much more obvious that we have no purpose or teleology at all -- that NOTHING is guaranteed to us, that life has no actual point (even if we are terrified and make one up to console ourselves), and that "if" and "because" are merely temporal instrumental, and probabilistic, and in no way genuinely moral at all.

Well, you assume that we have a purpose,

I do. And that's grounded in my belief in God, of course. But I'm not saying you do. Nor, at this moment, am I mounting the defense for that.

Here, we're not at all talking about what I think -- at least, not at this moment. We're talking about the totaly unworkability of hypothetical imperatives. It's not at all clear, from any perspective, how we can make the hypothetical "imperative" at all.

But I'm willing for you to show me how it would work.

But the moral realist position is that oughts exist which are not formed on hypothetical imperatives. So, ought a creation to obey its creators wishes because of the fact that the creator created them? I don't think you can establish that that's "true." I think you maybe intuit it (I don't), but I don't think there's an argument you can make for its truth.

Well, as above, there's much more to be said than merely that.

But it's at least prima facie a good argument, and requires some sort of refutation. After all, if the creator of an entity does not, in any sense, "own" it, then is there any other candidate who plausibly does? I don't think there is. The creation certainly does not come into existence by its own volition and plan, with its own papers in hand, guaranteed total autonomy from its creator by dint of...what?

Even intuitively, that makes no sense. And I can't see a counterargument even available there. Who is the rival owner?

I am somewhat confused why there appears to be this hidden premise that agents must have "owners." Rather than asking, "does anyone own free agents?" you ask "if it isn't their creator, then who owns them?"

That's hair-splitting, I have to say. But I can work with it.

Let's not say "owns." Let's just say, "Who has the legitimate right to say what a person should do: the person herself, or God?"

How do we make the claim "I have a right to say what I should do," when you also have to claim you live in a universe in which exist no objective "rights" and no objective "shoulds"? How would you legitimate such a "right"?

People have autonomy;

Yet another gift from God.

There's no necessity it should have been that way, apart from Him.

..it would then self-contradict to say that the creation doesn't actually have autonomy because it "owes" the creator its wishes.

Not if the creature had the option of disobeying. And she does.

We can say "because what God wishes is good." OK. But why is it good? We can say "because God's nature is good." OK. But what does it mean for God's nature to be good? What is goodness? We've never gotten past this question.

I
Well, I pointed out to you that it posits that "good" and "God" are different things. I argue that they are identical. You decline that. I don't know what we can do about that, from here.

Oh! I may have misunderstood you, then. So, your argument is that good and God are identical, they are the same thing? Goodness is a being with properties like personhood, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.? Nothing makes goodness a distinct concept from God, goodness = God?

Not quite.

Goodness is A predication of God. That doesn't mean it's THE ONLY possible predication of God, or the EXCLUSIVE predication of God. For, as every Christian knows, God is not just good. He is also holy. He is also just. He is also true. He is also faithful. All these are all predications of God.

P.S. -- Still not wanting to touch Jenner, eh?

[Veritas Aequitas]

The people here will tell you you're wrong.

They'll say that "is" and "ought" are the same thing. They will say that the problem of Hume's Guillotine has been solved long ago...by somebody...they don't know who...they can't say...but it happened...don't ask anymore...shawdup.

But you're not allowed to posit the difference Hume noted anymore. That's what they'll say.

Good luck changing their minds. You're going to need it.

I believe you are going off topic here.

The focus on this OP is on political oughts not on moral oughts [re Hume].

Much philosophy revolves around this question of ''is''
and ''ought''.. About what ''is'' and what ''ought'' to be.
This is especially true in regard to political philosophy.

Where the topic is related to moral-ought, then it OUGHT to be raised in the Ethical Theory Section. Therein I have raised more than 10 topics related to 'No Is From Ought' to explain the original misconceptions by Hume.

[Astro Cat]

It was certainly a lot of evangelical Protestant thinking that was involved in Abolitionism, both in the UK and in the American case. So you might be right. Still, that's only a sort of instrumental argument...it's like we're saying, "People should believe in something we think is untrue, merely because it has effects we like." And that involves the unsavoury business of lying to people and indoctrinating them, which I think both you and I would regard as at least personally distasteful, if not also morally reprehensible.

Of course, I hadn't suggested lying to or indoctrinating anybody. Though I suppose I suggested if people could be convinced not to defend moral realism, you might perceive this as "lying" or "indoctrinating" since it's the position you hold. But it was all idle talk anyway, and we should just move on

I do wonder about your last sentence: "If it's just her, that is nothing against slavery... unless she's actually, objectively right about slavery being evil." That seems to suggest that if slavery is evil, then that is something "against" slavery. Yet the moral realist believes this is a world of moral realism and slavery still exists, what's "against" it*?

Rightness. The moral realist believes that slavery is just not right. It's ultimately offensive to God and offensive against man. It's just plain, objectively wrong.

Now, what's to be done about that? The Abolitionist movement shows us exactly what was to be done: slavery must be stopped. And so it was: not by subjectivists or relativists, but by moral objectivists grounded firmly in the conviction that injustices like that must not be allowed to persist. It was not a moral noncognitivist who arranged the banning of slavery in the British Empire; it was an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce, who gave his whole life to it, seeing it only achieved at his death. And the men who marched against the South at Antietam or Gettysburg did so to the sound of hymns, firm in the conviction that God was against slavery.

There were also those that marched at Antietam firm in their conviction that God approved of slavery. But let us move on, these are cheap points on both our parts that won't get us anywhere. I'm more excited about the meat of the actual argument.

Oh? So you were looking for more than reasons; you were looking for a syllogism? Why didn't you say so?

P1 -- God is the Creator of all people.
P2 -- The Creator is the only possible ultimate owner of whatever He creates.
C -- God owns all people.

There you go. I had worded my arguments as enthymemes, which is how most people speak informally. If you wanted formality, perhaps you should have said you wanted the middle term explicitly.

I didn't necessarily mean they had to be syllogisms, they just weren't arguments in that quotation. So let's examine this one. I'm unsure of what's really meant by "owning" someone in this context so let me dip down below where you make a stab at defining that:

Let's not say "owns." Let's just say, "Who has the legitimate right to say what a person should do: the person herself, or God?"

So if we combine this attempt at a definition with P2 above, we end up with the following:
P1) God is the creator of all people
P2) To be a creator carries the right to say what their creation should do
C) God has a right to say what all people do

All I've done here is taken the response and changed out "owned" for the suggested definition, but I must ask for further clarification then: this doesn't answer the original question "why ought the creation do what the creator says?" because it just includes the conclusion in question as a premise. I do not accept P2, so I need an argument for why P2 is true.

We might try something like:
1) The creation is not self-created
2) The creator did the creation a service by creating them
3) Those for whom a service has been done owe the one that did them the service
C) Therefore, the creation has a duty to fulfill the creator's wishes

That wouldn't work, because you can't "do a service" to something that doesn't already exist. It's also not evidently true that "service" entails debt. But something like it might be fine, if we fixed the wording.

But let's reverse the case, and see if it makes more sense. Let's suppose, for example, that you suppose that God is not the rightful owner of people...and maybe they somehow "own themselves". Perhaps you do believe it. Anyway, let's try it out.

Q1 -- People are created by God
Q2 --
C -- Therefore, people own themselves.

Can you make that syllogism work?

(Note that I have changed "P's" to "Q's" in this quote so that we don't mix up these premises with the premises a few paragraphs above)

Q1) People are created by God
Q2) God wants people to have agency
Q3) To have agency materially implies having one's own values
Q4) Nobody can force one to have different values than one possesses already
Q5) Values are used with hypothetical imperatives to build oughts
Q6) There is no evidence there is an ought that isn't built on a hypothetical imperative
Q7) All demonstrable* oughts a person might be subject to are constructed by their own values
C) Therefore, people are the only ones that determine what they ought to do

(* -- by "demonstrable," I mean that we have demonstrated copiously that oughts can be constructed by hypothetical imperatives, but I have yet to see a cogent, cognitive example of an ought which isn't constructed by a hypothetical imperative, e.g. per Q6. So really attacking Q6 by providing an argument for oughts not formed by hypothetical imperatives really attacks Q7 as well, and perhaps Q7 is a corollary or sub-conclusion of Q4-Q6)

A defense of Q5 would be to point out that we form oughts out of hypothetical imperatives all the time. "You better get dressed or we're gonna be late," for instance (looking at my girlfriend on this one). This is an ought formed by the hypothetical imperative, "If you value being on time, then you ought to get dressed." I doubt you object that this is a valid ought (of course it is not a moral ought, but I'm talking about all kinds of oughts), so Q5 is at least partly confirmed so far. Well, I would submit that we build our moral oughts in the same way as I've argued over this whole post: if I value the concept that others own property, then I ought not to steal from them.

Q6 is the basic contention of this whole discussion. One would need to defeat Q6 by explaining how an ought can exist without a hypothetical imperative to give it (the ought) substance/cognitivity. I have been trying to get an answer for this question ("is there an ought that isn't formed by a hypothetical imperative?") for so long (in general, not complaining about this exchange) that the absence of evidence is really starting to look like evidence of absence.

Or can you make this one work:

S1 -- People exist as a result of a cosmic accident called "the Big Bang."
S2 --
C -- Therefore, people own themselves.

Any better?

(Note that I have changed the P's in the original quote to S's so that we keep all three of these attempted syllogisms separate when speaking about their premises)

The only instance in which I'm aware that anyone "should" do anything is when they have a hypothetical imperative. So really, any syllogism I make is going to look a lot like the Q syllogism given above (I probably wouldn't care about the God premises though).

S1) People exist as a result of a cosmic accident called "the Big Bang."
S2) People evolved the capacity to have agency
S3) To have agency materially implies having one's own values
S4) Nobody can force one to have different values than one possesses already
S5) Values are used with hypothetical imperatives to build oughts
S6) There is no evidence there is an ought that isn't built on a hypothetical imperative
S7) All demonstrable* oughts a person might be subject to are constructed by their own values
C) Therefore, people are the only ones that determine what they ought to do

Well, you assume that we have a purpose,

I do. And that's grounded in my belief in God, of course. But I'm not saying you do. Nor, at this moment, am I mounting the defense for that.

Here, we're not at all talking about what I think -- at least, not at this moment. We're talking about the totaly unworkability of hypothetical imperatives. It's not at all clear, from any perspective, how we can make the hypothetical "imperative" at all.

But I'm willing for you to show me how it would work.

Well, I actually think that if it can be established that there are oughts which are not formed by hypothetical imperatives, that will ultimately be the same thing as establishing there is intrinsic purpose. So I think the two things are so closely related as to be dominoes by which one is shown as soon as the other is.

I do not think hypothetical imperatives are "unworkable," we use them all the time to form oughts. For instance, the "you better get dressed so we can be on time" example is one I don't think you'd object to being an ought constructed with a hypothetical imperative. Well, I just also think this is how moral oughts are built: "If I value property, then I ought not to steal." Some people you could put in a room with other peoples' possessions, some of which they might want for their own very much, and they will never take them simply because they value not doing that. Other people, as I discovered in my early 20's, you never invite over again. It depends on a person's values.

I don't know what you mean about this "not working." The only "work" it needs to do is describe reality, which it does.

Well, I pointed out to you that it posits that "good" and "God" are different things. I argue that they are identical. You decline that. I don't know what we can do about that, from here.

Oh! I may have misunderstood you, then. So, your argument is that good and God are identical, they are the same thing? Goodness is a being with properties like personhood, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.? Nothing makes goodness a distinct concept from God, goodness = God?

Not quite.

Goodness is A predication of God. That doesn't mean it's THE ONLY possible predication of God, or the EXCLUSIVE predication of God. For, as every Christian knows, God is not just good. He is also holy. He is also just. He is also true. He is also faithful. All these are all predications of God.

I am really confused by your position here. On one hand you say "I argue they [good and God] are identical," when I ask "so what is goodness?" you respond "God." (period), but now you say that "goodness is a predication of God."

X can't be a predication of Y and also be identical with Y. I think your position is confused or at least the way you have described it is confused.

Let's start over in some way. First, I need to be sure what you mean by "goodness is a predication of God." Do you mean property? For instance blackness is a property of my keyboard, my keyboard has the property of being black. It has the property of length, and the property of having a specific length. A person might have the property of being kind. Is this what you mean by predication: that God has the property of being good? If not, what do you mean by that?

Ultimately, I still need to know: what is goodness? But this is really asking, "what is an ought that isn't formed by a hypothetical imperative?" It is still interesting in that I need to know what you think the relationship between goodness and God is in order to make any sense of your position, because so far, it is confusing.

P.S. -- Still not wanting to touch Jenner, eh?

As I said, I felt we completed that topic in the gender essentialism thread, so unless some new concept comes out of it that's pertinent and interesting that hasn't already been discussed and felt to be concluded, then yeah, I'll probably skip it

[Immanuel Can]

The people here will tell you you're wrong.

They'll say that "is" and "ought" are the same thing. They will say that the problem of Hume's Guillotine has been solved long ago...by somebody...they don't know who...they can't say...but it happened...don't ask anymore...shawdup.

But you're not allowed to posit the difference Hume noted anymore. That's what they'll say.

Good luck changing their minds. You're going to need it.

I believe you are going off topic here.

The focus on this OP is on political oughts not on moral oughts [re Hume].

There are no "oughts" either in politics or ethics, if Materialism or Physicalism or anything similar is true.

The most you'll find is that there are instrumental ways to get things you don't know whether or not you really "ought" to be getting. But the rightness of your political project will still be unestablishable without the moral.

Lying to people is one way that will help Communism come about, for example. But whether or not Communism is the system we "ought" to have will not be established merely by the fact that you've found an efficacious way to make it come about. If Communism is legit, it will have to be shown to be the political system we "ought" to have.

[Veritas Aequitas]

The people here will tell you you're wrong.

They'll say that "is" and "ought" are the same thing. They will say that the problem of Hume's Guillotine has been solved long ago...by somebody...they don't know who...they can't say...but it happened...don't ask anymore...shawdup.

But you're not allowed to posit the difference Hume noted anymore. That's what they'll say.

Good luck changing their minds. You're going to need it.

I believe you are going off topic here.

The focus on this OP is on political oughts not on moral oughts [re Hume].

There are no "oughts" either in politics or ethics, if Materialism or Physicalism or anything similar is true.

The most you'll find is that there are instrumental ways to get things you don't know whether or not you really "ought" to be getting. But the rightness of your political project will still be unestablishable without the moral.

Lying to people is one way that will help Communism come about, for example. But whether or not Communism is the system we "ought" to have will not be established merely by the fact that you've found an efficacious way to make it come about. If Communism is legit, it will have to be shown to be the political system we "ought" to have.

I have argued there are moral facts of 'oughtness' and how they can be implemented without enforcement on any individual[s] in the Ethical Theory Section. I won't do it here.

As for non-moral oughts, there is a load of contentious views held by different people. There are political oughts, i.e. what ought to be the ideal or optimal political system.
Others are what ought to be the ideal and optimal environment, re climate change, there is the ought-not to burn fossil fuel, there ought to be an existing God, etc.
These political and non-moral oughts are firstly subjective beliefs, judgments and opinions inferred from 'is' by different people.
I have not researched into these area so I am unable to conclude whether there are underlying associated facts related to these oughts.

What I am very confident is 'there ought to be an existing God' cannot be factual and it is an impossibility and a non-starter.

[Belinda]

Here I aim to pre-emptively take care of claims like "God is goodness." It is unclear whether you just propose that goodness is the only property that's identical with God or whether you claim that all of God's properties are identical with God (Divine Simplicity) since I'm being a little trigger happy and responding before you've had a chance to clear that up, but maybe this will make for entertaining reading anyway.

First I'd like to start with a quote from our friend Plantinga in defense of God having distinct properties/a distinct nature (i.e., God's nature not being identical to Himself) which are conceptualizable by us:

Now suppose we return to the question whether our concepts apply to God. It is a piece of sheer confusion to say that there is such a person as God, but none of our concepts apply to him. If our concepts do not apply to God, then he does not have such properties as wisdom, being almighty and being the creator of the heavens and the earth. Our concept of wisdom applies to a being if that being is wise; so a being to whom this concept did not apply would not be wise, whatever else it might be.

If, therefore, our concepts do not apply to God, then our concepts of being loving, almighty, wise, creator and Redeemer do not apply to him, in which case he is not loving, almighty, wise, a creator or a Redeemer. He won't have any of the properties Christians ascribe to him. In fact he won't have any of the properties of which we have concepts. He will not have such properties as self-identity, existence, and being either a material object or an immaterial object, these being properties of which we have concepts.

Indeed, he won't have the property of being the referent of the term 'God,' or any other term; our concept being the referent of a term does not apply to him. The fact is this being won't have any properties at all, since our concept of having at least one property does not apply to him. But how could there be such a thing?"

(Alvin Plantinga, "Does God Have A Nature?", pp. 22-23)

I want to take away from Plantinga's lengthy quote here that God must be sensible in some sense for us to even mean anything when we make the utterance "God," otherwise we're barking at the moon.

Now, a lot of our discussion has centered around God's nature and what it means for God to be good. I've spent some time arguing that if God's nature is to be good, then God doesn't define that goodness. I needn't repeat that here, but I pointed this out because it was important when asking questions like "what is good" and whether God had anything to do with the answer. I have since seen that you answered that goodness = God: not just that God is good as in has the property of goodness, but that goodness is identical to God. This has a lot of immediate (and poor) consequences.

For one thing, goodness is generally understood to be a property. Things are good if they possess goodness, this is similar to length being a property. You will never find "length" out there in the universe, you will only find things which possess length because it is a property. If God = goodness though, it means either that the arguer is saying God is a property or that goodness isn't a property (it certainly can't be both), and this is a category of confusion I'm not sure the arguer is prepared to deal with.

They'd be in interesting company on this point, though: we can actually go back to Aquinas and find him wringing his hands over this very worry about God and goodness. Aquinas worried that if God has the property of being good, then that fact is beyond God's control and Aquinas found that unacceptable. He said,

...each good thing that is not its goodness is called good by participation. But that which is named by participation has something prior to it from which it receives the character of goodness. This cannot proceed to infinity, since among final causes there is no regress to infinity ... We must therefore reach some first good, that is not by participation good through an order towards some other good, but is good through its own essence. This is God. God is therefore His own goodness.

(Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Contra Gentiles" I 38)

There are some deeply troubling problems here:

One: That the "problem" Aquinas worries about ("participating" in a property rather than being "identical" to a property) applies to all of God's properties, not just goodness: it applies to God being wise, to God being powerful, etc. But we cannot then just throw our arms up and say that God is identical to wisdom and identical to power because then we're in a real pickle: if God is identical to goodness, and God is identical to wisdom, then it means that goodness is identical to wisdom, and wisdom is identical to power, and so on: these words lose all of their meaning whatsoever because they're all identical to each other; and God ends up with no essential properties (and doesn't even have the property of "being the referent of the term 'God'").

So either one is OK with God "participating" in properties (i.e., possessing properties in the normal sense) or one is doomed to a whole soup of confusion that critics can simply dismiss as noncognitive nonsense without a second thought: the word "God" wouldn't even mean anything, and words like "wisdom" and "power" and "goodness" would all mean the same thing, which is to say they would mean nothing. This is why I quoted Plantinga on this above, as he says it more eloquently than I could. Plantinga rejects Aquinas's feeble attempt to "rescue" God from having a property like goodness ("participating" in it), and you should too.

Two: Perhaps the arguer (you, in this case) never meant that God is identical to properties, but that goodness was never a property in the first place. Perhaps every time anyone says "goodness" they just mean "in congruence with God's nature," such that utterances like "X is good" really just mean "X is Godly" or "X is reminiscent of God."

This, too, breaks down into a pile of nonsense, because the question has to be asked: in what way is X reminiscent of God? God is wise, for instance, and we don't call it "good" when someone is wise (not necessarily, anyway: someone we might call "evil" may also be wise) even though that's ostensibly "God-like" or "Godly" to be wise. God is powerful, so being powerful is "God-like" or "Godly," and we don't call being powerful "good."

We might try to amend the situation by clarifying that "X is good" really means "X is in alignment with God's wishes." Then we don't have to worry about whether things that share properties with God are "good" unless they specifically deal with how God might react to a given situation.

But, can you not see that this leads to Divine Command Theory as a direct result, and have you not already explicitly rejected Divine Command Theory? If X is good only because X is in alignment with God's wishes, then it is good because God wishes it. We are back at Euthyphro's fork in this instance and we have to ask:

Is X good because God wishes it? Then Divine Command Theory is true.
Does God wish X because it is good? Then "good" is a property and our entire supposition that "goodness is not a property and really just means to be in union with God" is out the window.

And obviously if we say "X is good and God wishes X" is unnecessary because "X is good" is the only important part, that God also wishes it is extraneous.

So if "goodness" is not its own property and just means to be in alignment with God, you either need to get real comfortable with Divine Command Theory real fast, or you've contradicted yourself.

That the "problem" Aquinas worries about ("participating" in a property rather than being "identical" to a property) applies to all of God's properties, not just goodness: it applies to God being wise, to God being powerful, etc. But we cannot then just throw our arms up and say that God is identical to wisdom and identical to power because then we're in a real pickle: if God is identical to goodness, and God is identical to wisdom, then it means that goodness is identical to wisdom, and wisdom is identical to power, and so on: these words lose all of their meaning whatsoever because they're all identical to each other; and God ends up with no essential properties (and doesn't even have the property of "being the referent of the term 'God'").

These words never had ante res meaning. The words have subjective and social meaning. The subjective and social meanings are the only meanings of these words "power", "wisdom", "goodness" and so on . The quest to incarnate these meanings in ordinary life is man's quest for meaning and / or God. God is not a thing but an attitude towards one's future life.