Philosophy Now Forum

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:10 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:04 am False analogy. 'Good' isn't a name like 'Holmes'. We may say 'God is good' - using the 'is' of predication - but we wouldn't normally say 'Peter is Holmes'. If in 'God is good' we're using the 'is' of identity - so we mean God and the good or goodness are one and the same thing - as in 'God is love' and 'God is ultimate reality' - which seems to be your meaning - then the claim is vacuous, because if God is the good then the good is God - so the god of classical theism disappears.

Just chiming in to say that I was wrong.

I thought your God was the 'law' of non-contradiction.
I see you have surrendered your ability to think for yourself to the 'law' of identity also.

You are religious, Peter. And you don't even know it

You claim there is no objective meaning, while also assuming that the signifier "God" has objective meaning - a single, unambiguous signified. You also assume that everybody understands and signifies that signifier with the label "God'.

You seem extraordinarily confused. I believe we can produce true factual assertions - facts - so that objectivity - reliance on facts - is possible. What I reject is the idea that moral assertions express factual claims at all. My OP is about the possibility of moral objectivism.

And you misunderstand the signifier-signified relationship. It's because signs don't magically contain signifieds that there's no such thing as a 'single, unambiguous signified'. As before, you're muddling up the way things are and what we say about them - and so misunderstanding the nature of objectivity, which is to do with facts, not what the facts are facts about.

That is what objective meaning IS. A 1:1 mapping between a signifier and signified that is agreed upon by all interlocutors.

You've tied yourself up in Aristotle's mental muddle by blindly accepting his axioms, while you can't even utter a paragraph without violating them.

If you understand and accept semiotics, and you subscribe to any correspondence theory of truth then you need to reject the law of identity. They are incompatible ideas!

Again, you're confused. As I said earlier, I don't subscribe to any form of the correspondence theory, because it suggests a two-way relationship that simply does not exist. The autonomy of language (or 'grammar', as Wittgenstein put it) is absolute.

Btw, if it entertains you to call my position 'religious', you just carry on. But don't kid yourself that you're saying anything significant.

Btw, the rules (not laws) of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle are inter-dependent tautologies. So we can't subscribe to or worship one without necessarily subscribing to the others. Another little confusion I bet you're glad to have explained to you.

Btw, oh dear, I appear to have continued our conversation by mistake. I'll try not to respond until you say something relevant and interesting.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:40 pm And you misunderstand the signifier-signified relationship.

Appeal to privileged knowledge AND objective morality

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:40 pm I believe we can produce true factual assertions - facts - so that objectivity - reliance on facts - is possible.

Any 'facts' you produce are only meaningful in cultural/social/environmental context. They are contingent on the context (pre-suppositions and assumptions!) being communicated also - to the entity interpreting your 'facts'. Meaning is inseparable from context. And if you don't believe me - go ahead and make any 'true factual assertions' and I will introduce contexts in which they assert to "false"!

All positive claims about the world are contingent! (<---even this one)

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:40 pm because it suggests a two-way relationship that simply does not exist.

And yet you think you have understood the word 'God' as the 'classical theists' intended it to be understood and in the context that it was originally meant?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:40 pm The autonomy of language (or 'grammar', as Wittgenstein put it) is absolute.

Wittgenstein was wrong. Language is implicit. It lacks context. Truth is not context-free. Truth is explicit - it IS the context!
There is no escaping the implicit/explicit distinction in classical logic and Godel's incompleteness theorems prove it.

Chomsky's hierarchy (a few decades after Wittgenstein and Godel) established the context-free and context-sensitive distinctions.

So by definition - if you don't encode as many of the original author's pre-suppositions/assumptions/intentions when writing the words - you WILL end up with misinterpretation!

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:40 pm I'll try not to respond until you say something relevant and interesting.

This is rather ironic. By what objective standard of 'relevance' or 'interest'?
I keep showing you edge cases (falsifiers/contradictions) to ALL of your assertions. And that is insufficient to move you to recognise the contingency in all of your 'true factual assertions'! You don't even bother asking the question as to how and why I am able to do that with such ease. You are happy to brush your special pleading under the carpet. Which begs the question: what is your agenda?

If that is not relevant or interesting to you, then I will stick to my assertions that you are religious

The notion of 'truth' is the best-run marketing campaign in the history of humanity. Which is why everybody tries to lay claim to it.

TimeSeeker

So. 'The notion of 'truth' is the best-run marketing campaign in the history of humanity. Which is why everybody tries to lay claim to it.'

So nothing we say is true because meaningful, including the claim that nothing we say is true or meaningful.

Perhaps you shouldn't bother contributing here. Leave it to those of us who want to discuss moral objectivism in our hopelessly misguided way.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:36 pm So nothing we say is true because meaningful, including the claim that nothing we say is true or meaningful.

Well, it's meaningful to me, but that's not useful if I want to communicate my meaning to you.

I also need to ensure that you can understand my meaning.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:36 pm Perhaps you shouldn't bother contributing here. Leave it to those of us who want to discuss moral objectivism in our hopelessly misguided way.

I am doing one better. I solved it for you. Now I am trying to get you to understand my meaning.

But it's clear to me that English is insufficient to convey it. Because we lack shared knowledge.

So how does one communicate knowledge, hmmm ?

Never mind other people, how do you know that what you say means anything?

Performative contradiction?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:46 pm Never mind other people, how do you know that what you say means anything?

That's not a complete sentence. Means anything to whom?

It means something to me because I intended it to. Otherwise why would I say it?

I don't know if it means anything to you, because you may not be able to interpret the words which I've chosen to use.
I certainly don't expect you to understand the meaning of words which I have invented myself to describe aspects of my experiences which are important to me!

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:46 pm Performative contradiction?

If you subscribe to the religion of 'objective meaning' - then yes.
Otherwise It is just a communication problem that you and I need to overcome somehow.

Oh, piss off.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:49 pm Oh, piss off.

Do you believe in 'objective meaning' or not?

Either the answer is 'no', or you should be able to tell me what I mean by the word 'wingfrot'.

I had a new experience for which I had no English word - so I made one up. I INVENTED 'wingfrot' out of human necessity.
It definitely means something. You just don't know what.

By insisting on this stupid notion of 'objectivity' you are busy re-inventing an imaginary reference frame, the groundwork necessary for a God-belief to settle in a human mind. You aren't an atheist. Gods emerged because sufficiently many people believed in 'objective X' - just like you do!

The only difference is that in 2018 you don't call it God anymore. You call it Truth now.
So I am going to reject your faith and in an (over?)reactionary fashion call myself an atruist.

Truth-seekers are the 21st century theists. And I am going to burn your Church down

Or maybe - this thread should've be called "what could make meaning objective"? And that is far easier - common purpose!

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:04 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:33 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:38 am 3 The argument that, if there's no god, there's no meaning or purpose to life and the universe - so there is a god - is a fallacious appeal to consequences and a non sequitur. But you keep plugging it regardless.

If I'm wrong, you should be able to show it very quickly. What is the objective meaning and purpose to life? What is the objective moral value? All that I've said is verifiably true.

This is a muddle again. You assume life and the universe have a meaning and purpose. Then you ask me what that objective meaning and purpose is.

No. I've got it right. You said, in point 3, that the argument that if there is no God, then there's no meaning and purpose to life is wrong. Is that not what you meant? Or did you intend to say that I was right about what I said, about there being no meaning and purpose without God? Because it can only be one of those two.

If you really know it's wrong, then you must know why it is. And you must also know what objective "meaning and purpose" there can be for someone without reference to God.

So I just asked you to tell what you claim to know.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:33 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:38 am4 Your misrepresentation of my argument on morality is patently dishonest, and I hope others reading this can see your dishonesty out in the open.

'As for further implications, it does have some. You've identified one yourself: if there's no God, there's no such thing as an objective morality either. Of course, that also turns the existence of any subjective morality into a triviality as well, so there's an additional implication.'

This your claim, not mine. My argument is that morality can't be objective, so that the existence of a god is irrelevant in this discussion. And you know damn well it is.

Oh? So now you're prepared to say there's a possibility of objective morality in an Atheistic world? Please, do tell.

To be generous, I'll assume you misread what I wrote - mistaking a quotation from you for my words.

No, but I was being a bit ironic, I confess. You said there were no implications from Atheism. I showed that there were, and that one of them was your own -- namely, the belief that morality cannot be objective. That's all.

Since I believe morality can't be objective, I believe it can't be objective in any situation.

And you think that's not an implication of Atheism?

Well, then, from what premise(s) do you draw that conclusion, "morality can't be objective"?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:38 am So the criterion for judging whether the god's will and nature - and so commands - are morally good is: do the god's will and nature and commands conform to the god's will and nature and commands?

I'd respond if your syntax made any sense to me, but I can't see what you're attempting to say here.

By what criterion do you judge this supposedly revealed god to be good? Circular and so fallacious reasoning.

Here's your confusion on this point: you keep thinking that God, instead of being the touchstone of truth and goodness, is some kind of object-in-the-universe -- or else, it seems, you think that's what Theists must believe.

But if God is the originator of the very concept "good," and His nature is "good," and OUR conception of goodness is merely derivative of that (and can be judged as fallacious or accurate based on it's proximity to objective goodness), then there is no standard of "goodness" by which you can take God to court and judge Him. Quite the opposite: your "goodness" will be judged by the Ultimate Touchstone and Judge of objective goodness.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:33 pm ...it's like asking, "Are you Peter, or are you Mr. Homes" -- now, don't beg the question! So your question is redundant.

False analogy. 'Good' isn't a name like 'Holmes'.

It doesn't matter. We could say, "Peter Holmes," or "the guy who responds to this message," if you like. The point is simply that they are alternate descriptions of exactly the same person.

We may say 'God is good' - using the 'is' of predication - but we wouldn't normally say 'Peter is Holmes'.

True, "Homes" isn't an adjective. But we could say, "Peter is witty," or "The witty one is Peter." Just so, we could say, "God is good," or "Being the origin point and ultimate touchstone of goodness is one of the qualities God embodies" -- He is "the Good One." They're interchangeable, being alternate descriptions of the identical Person.

If in 'God is good' we're using the 'is' of identity - so we mean God and the good or goodness are one and the same thing - as in 'God is love' and 'God is ultimate reality' - which seems to be your meaning

No, God's love and His ultimate realness are predications of God. And they're good ones. But they're not reversible. I would say God is good, but not that (especially the human idea of) "goodness" is what God is.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 2:30 pm
Let me clarify. The fact of His existence does not depend on the opinion of any critic, one way or the other. The question of our knowledge in determining the truth of that fact is a different question. We must not confuse ontology with epistemology.

To illustrate: the planet Neptune existed before any human being knew it did. But until we knew it did, we had no incentive to reckon its existence into our astronomy. Yet those remained distinct issues. Neptune still served as a keystone of our solar system, even when we were oblivious to it. And once we were aware of it, it changed all our calculations.

If we are oblivious to some fact then it goes without saying that we have no knowledge of it. The confusion is not mine.

Immanuel Can wrote: This is the epistemological issue. And you're right...if God had not spoken, then that is precisely all we would have. And belief either way would be completely gratuitous.

But has God spoken?

As far as I know he hasn't spoken to anyone.

Immanuel Can wrote: The Euthyphro Question is very easily solvable. If you read the relevant passage, you'll see that Socrates himself specifies explicitly that it is a problem only inherent to Polytheism.

That's not true, it is also relevant to monotheism.

Immanuel Can wrote: He says very clearly that it is because "the gods" love different things that the whole question can arise. So those critics who continue to rely in a cavalier fashion on the Euthyphro Problem as a show-stopper are rejoicing far too early; they haven't really read it. For if "what God approves" and "the Good" are identical, then there can be no either-or problem of which is to be preferred: that would be like asking "if Ginko is the author of this message, or the author of this message is Ginko." The question itself simply becomes a confusion of identical terms.

A load of nonsense. The Euthyphro Dilemma is alive and well in academic circles.

Immanuel Can wrote: To sum up: it's only if we have a singular, Supreme Being with a moral identity and a specific revelation of that moral identity that we can speak of morality being objectively grounded. But if that is what we have, we certainly can...and must...speak of morality in those terms.

Would that be the moral and loving God that did all of those horrendous things to people in the Old Testament ?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:41 am It doesn't matter. We could say, "Peter Holmes," or "the guy who responds to this message," if you like. The point is simply that they are alternate descriptions of exactly the same person.

You can't say that either without complete disregard for epistemology. Are they 'exactly the same person'?

In the time it took you to type that sentence neurons fired, heart beats happened, blood cells moved about, proteolysis took place, incredibly many things CHANGED about the signified irrespective of the signifiers you used to describe it.

To claim that they are 'exactly the same' is to speak lies.

What aspects of the signified did you CHOOSE TO DISREGARD so that you can falsely assert exact sameness? Why?

Immanuel Can

1 To clarify: you justify your belief that your god is good by claiming it's 'the Good One' or that it's 'the origin point and ultimate touchstone of goodness', or that it's 'the originator of the very concept "good"' and it's 'nature is "good," and OUR conception of goodness is merely derivative of that (and can be judged as fallacious or accurate based on it's proximity to objective goodness)' - and so on.

You can re-phrase it as many times and in as many ways as you like - but it provides no justification whatsoever. These are all different ways of saying your god is good because your god is good. To say a god is good is either to predicate something of it - to use 'good' adjectivally - or it's to identify it nominally with the good or goodness. Either way, the claim and the argument are circular, begging the question. You can't justify this belief by saying it's true. As one who professedly values valid and sound argument, surely you must recognise this.

2 My OP question is 'What could make morality objective?' And my answer is that nothing can, because moral assertions express value-judgements, not factual (objective) claims. Moral goodness, badness, rightness and wrongness are not objective properties, but rather express subjective evaluations - which is why there can be rational moral debate about some people and actions. And for this reason, the existence of a god, hypothetical or not, has no relevance in this discussion. To say a god, its nature and commands are good is to express a value-judgement. And that remains the case if the god expresses that value-judgement: I and my commands are good, so they're good. (There's nothing factual here.)

3 As usual, you dodge the tough question: if a god commands us to [mutilate our babies'genitals], does that mean that [infant genital mutilation] is morally good? (Insert the atrocity of your choice.) Please don't forget the point of a hypothetical premise, which is to test an argument. You've consistently argued that 'IF God exists, THEN ...' So you shouldn't use the 'this is counterfactual' dodge. Care to answer the question? I guess you won't - why actually face up to the disastrous implications of an irrational belief? Better to dodge, eh?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:23 am You can re-phrase it as many times and in as many ways as you like - but it provides no justification whatsoever.

You are aware that the regress problem in epistemology is unsolved, yes? So when you point out a 'lack of justification', one would be forgiven for inferring that you have some epistemic criteria for 'sufficient justification' in mind.

Could you tell us what they are? I'll bet money that you can't

$500 to a charity of your choice. Put your money where your mouth is. Or some such ancient wisdom.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:37 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:23 am You can re-phrase it as many times and in as many ways as you like - but it provides no justification whatsoever.

You are aware that the regress problem in epistemology is unsolved, yes? So when you point out a 'lack of justification', one would be forgiven for inferring that you have some epistemic criteria for 'sufficient justification' in mind.

Could you tell us what they are? I'll bet money that you can't

$500 to a charity of your choice. Put your money where your mouth is. Or some such ancient wisdom.

The regress problem is another metaphysical fantasy, so it doesn't need solving. But by all means furkle down the rabbit hole.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:50 am The regress problem is another metaphysical fantasy, so it doesn't need solving. But by all means furkle down the rabbit hole.

Good! So you do believe that sufficient justification is possible?

I trust you accept my challenge then and you shall provide some 'objective criteria' for 'sufficient justification'.

I am sure you believe you are correct, so you have nothing to lose then? Only gain $500 to a cause of your choosing.