Philosophy Now Forum

Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:28 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2023 4:25 pm According to Trajik's scenario, the stakes are the ultimate (literally life and death). A group of miners are trapped in a collapsed mine and are starving. The only possible edible thing in the mine is each other. They haven't yet been rescued and are not sure if they will be rescued or not. They draw straws. After they draw straws they agree among themselves that the first person who kills someone is the one everyone remaining will kill. In other words, they will kill the killer.

That's my interpretation of things. In other words, ONLY if someone gets so desperate that they will kill another person for food, will that justify the others killing the person who killed for food.

But I think you bring up a good point. The scenario is not quite over yet. There would then be two dead people (the one who was killed for food and the one who killed that person for food). Now there's a choice for the remaining survivors who are trapped. Namely, what do they do with the two dead bodies? Do the remaining people, who are also starving, eat the dead bodies or do they abstain? And if they abstain, what might be the new "social contract" among them?

Actually, the group never agreed to kill the the one who tries to kill someone else.

Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:28 pm When the time came to eat the one with the shortest straw, they found that they could not find it within themselves to kill one of their group.

One of them obviously disagreed because when the rest of the group was sleeping, one of them tried to kill another but before they could do it, or complete the job, because the victim started screaming, they were discovered and the group killed the "killer", so there was only one dead person - the "killer". It was something that just happened - not that they agreed to kill one of them that tries to kill first.

Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:28 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2023 10:15 pm I hate these stupid paradoxical 'thought experiments' that are never going to happen in reality. What if a mother is starving and she has some children? Is she going to eat them? Fucking ridiculous.

Why is it paradoxical? Because moral ideas contradict themselves. If the mother dies, the children also die as they have no one to care for them. Which is worse - that they all die, or some of them do for the others to survive and hopefully the mother can have more kids when things are better.

You say that it never happened in reality, but I'm sure in the entire history of humans this has occurred, where a parent is faced with starvation and many mouths to feed. Nor do you know how things will end up in the future when humans are on the verge of becoming extinct. So it's not fucking ridiculous. You're just short-sighted in this case.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:36 pm

Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:28 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2023 4:25 pm According to Trajik's scenario, the stakes are the ultimate (literally life and death). A group of miners are trapped in a collapsed mine and are starving. The only possible edible thing in the mine is each other. They haven't yet been rescued and are not sure if they will be rescued or not. They draw straws. After they draw straws they agree among themselves that the first person who kills someone is the one everyone remaining will kill. In other words, they will kill the killer.

That's my interpretation of things. In other words, ONLY if someone gets so desperate that they will kill another person for food, will that justify the others killing the person who killed for food.

But I think you bring up a good point. The scenario is not quite over yet. There would then be two dead people (the one who was killed for food and the one who killed that person for food). Now there's a choice for the remaining survivors who are trapped. Namely, what do they do with the two dead bodies? Do the remaining people, who are also starving, eat the dead bodies or do they abstain? And if they abstain, what might be the new "social contract" among them?

Actually, the group never agreed to kill the the one who tries to kill someone else. When the time came to eat the one with the shortest straw, they found that they could not find it within themselves to kill one of their group.

One of them obviously disagreed because when the rest of the group was sleeping, one of them tried to kill another but before they could do it, or complete the job, because the victim started screaming, they were discovered and the group killed the "killer", so there was only one dead person - the "killer". It was something that just happened - not that they agreed to kill one of them that tries to kill first.

OK. Perhaps, then. if they had made some kind of agreement to that effect between them beforehand then the killer would not have killed that person? Perhaps, "social contract" is something that cannot be objectively made.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:36 pm
Perhaps things "just happen" the way they should.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:36 pm
I don't know. I still think cannibalism is immoral. I can't prove it but it seems pretty immoral to me.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:12 pm I suspect that part of the problem in this entire
''cannibalism is immoral" lies in the word.. Immoral..
what exactly does this word mean? Immoral to.. whom?
why is it ... immoral? what makes this action ... immoral?
the rub here is not in cannibalism, but in the word.. immoral...

Kropotkin

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:27 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:23 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:12 pm
Coherency.

So far, you call something "immoral," but can't say why it's "immoral." It raises the question of why you called anything "immoral" in the first place. You must have had something in mind, but it's not at all clear what it was.

You then said it's more than "Gary doesn't like...," so it's only fair I ask you to explain what more you mean.

I can't perform those tasks. I can't tell you "why" something is immoral.

Then you should probably abandon using the word. It lacks content, for you.

You said it doesn't mean "Gary doesn't like": but then you revert to,

I can only say what seems immoral to me.

Then you're not really saying anything at all. You're saying, "What Gary doesn't like is what Gary doesn't like."

Do you think cannibalism is "immoral"? If so, then "why" do you think it's immoral?

Certainly. But I'm a moral objectivist, so there's nothing inconsistent in me saying so.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:49 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:30 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:27 pm
Then you should probably abandon using the word. It lacks content, for you.

You said it doesn't mean "Gary doesn't like": but then you revert to,


Then you're not really saying anything at all. You're saying, "What Gary doesn't like is what Gary doesn't like."


Certainly. But I'm a moral objectivist, so there's nothing inconsistent in me saying so.

OK. If you want to believe that I can't know what is immoral and what isn't, then so be it. I feel like I do.

I know. I can see you do.

However, what we do in philosophy is more than have feelings. We try to figure out whether or not those feelings are appropriate, and what good reasons we might have for feeling as we do.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:49 pm

However, on the bright side, at least we both agree that cannibalism is immoral. Can we call it a "win" then? We both seem to be onboard in taking that stand against cannibalism.

It's not good enough, Gary. Because somebody is going to ask us why we think what we think...not merely about cannibalism, perhaps, but about murder, abuse, slavery, theft, sloth, character assassination, perjury and so forth. And when they do, we have to have something much better to tell them than, "Well, Gary and I feel this way..."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:49 pm If that's all we've got, we can expect to lose our case, right away.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 6:49 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 6:36 pm OK, so maybe you can "define" immoral"? What do you define "immoral" as? You say I can't do it. Can you do what I can't? Or are you in the same boat as me?

I've done it several times here. But I'm fine doing it again.

"Immoral" means "incompatible with the character and purposes of God."

But it's not a definition that a non-Theist is going to believe.

It will still be right, though.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:03 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 6:56 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 6:55 pm
You got my definition wrong. I included God's "nature and purposes." Since "immoral" and "contrary to the nature and purposes of God" are exactly the same thing, you're not asking an intelligible question. You're presupposing they're two different things; but Theists believe they are not.

OK. Would you say God is a good God?

"Good" is just another word for "moral," which is a synonym for "consonant with the character and purposes of God." So you're going to have the same problem: you're presupposing a dichotomy where none exists.

But the problem is different for Atheists and agnostics. If they assume "good" and "God's nature and purposes" are distinct, then they're going to think they can ask the question coherently, even though they can't really do that. So they're going to think the question is reasonable, when it's not. You can't ask a Theist to stop believing as a Theist and still to give you a Theistic answer. That's not sensible...

Moreover, they're in no position to ask about a predication of something they don't even think exists...two things, really, that don't rationalize with their own a priori suppositions. For in their world, there is neither a "God" nor an objective "good."

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:12 pm "So in what sense is Socialism "moral" then? "Moral" doesn't even exist, for Socialism."

Bro it was precisely on account of there being no transcendent excuse for man's miserable existence that Marx, Karl was so critically concerned about tryna make material existence as decent as possible.

Christians on the other hand not only have no legitimate basis for an objective morality (other than a few command statements in a book), the economic system they almost exclusively endorse is free market capitalism... the very thing that is creating, directly or indirectly, such a mass of misery for so many people.

That's a double whammy IC.

And it's that very kind of misery that got the jews'ta thinkin, hopin, there was a heaven in the first place.

Have u ever seen such a vicious circle before in your life? It's madness. Total madness.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:36 pm

Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:28 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2023 4:25 pm According to Trajik's scenario, the stakes are the ultimate (literally life and death). A group of miners are trapped in a collapsed mine and are starving. The only possible edible thing in the mine is each other. They haven't yet been rescued and are not sure if they will be rescued or not. They draw straws. After they draw straws they agree among themselves that the first person who kills someone is the one everyone remaining will kill. In other words, they will kill the killer.

That's my interpretation of things. In other words, ONLY if someone gets so desperate that they will kill another person for food, will that justify the others killing the person who killed for food.

But I think you bring up a good point. The scenario is not quite over yet. There would then be two dead people (the one who was killed for food and the one who killed that person for food). Now there's a choice for the remaining survivors who are trapped. Namely, what do they do with the two dead bodies? Do the remaining people, who are also starving, eat the dead bodies or do they abstain? And if they abstain, what might be the new "social contract" among them?

Actually, the group never agreed to kill the the one who tries to kill someone else. When the time came to eat the one with the shortest straw, they found that they could not find it within themselves to kill one of their group.

One of them obviously disagreed because when the rest of the group was sleeping, one of them tried to kill another but before they could do it, or complete the job, because the victim started screaming, they were discovered and the group killed the "killer", so there was only one dead person - the "killer". It was something that just happened - not that they agreed to kill one of them that tries to kill first.

OK. Perhaps, then. if they had made some kind of agreement to that effect between them beforehand then the killer would not have killed that person? Perhaps, "social contract" is something that cannot be objectively made. Perhaps things "just happen" the way they should. I don't know. I still think cannibalism is immoral. I can't prove it but it seems pretty immoral to me.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:36 pm I'll give it a stab.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:36 pm Here are my thoughts on the Bible:

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:36 pm 1. Maybe God created the world and left it to run itself. I don't know.

2. Perhaps there was no Garden of Eden, however, it is clear that whoever wrote the Bible thought that it was a mistake for humanity to attain knowledge of good and evil.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:36 pm 3. Who might consider it a mistake for their "children" to learn good and evil (and why)? Wild guess: would a father who tried to tell his children to do evil or else wanted to do evil to them, regret having taught his children the means of undermining his command? Perhaps he would curse the children for learning this tool of disobeying him? Would he maybe invent a story about an apple or whatever else struck the same sort of fancy that has stuck writers throughout history whether it be the bards of Homer's, Virgil, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, etc, etc, etc? Perhaps. Is it possible the story made its way into the consciousness of the people who inherited it from the writer(s) and caused those people to think that "good" was whatever they were commanded to do? So if they were "commanded" to kill all the women and children of a tribe, then it was certainly not "good" but it was "commanded".

4. Perhaps the flood was NOT commanded by God. Perhaps the flood, as with any other natural event, was merely a fluke consequence due to the nature of the world God designed and left ticking. However, writers of the time, for whatever reason, decided to attribute it to him/her/it.

5. Did God test Abraham? And if so, did Abraham pass the test? Perhaps not? Perhaps the true God wanted Abraham to say "no" to him when he asked him to sacrifice his son. God kept telling Abraham, leading him along the path of sacrificing his son with every word. God realized that Abraham was about to go through with the act and then told Abraham not to when he realized Abraham was not fit to be his own master, nor the master of anyone (for that matter).

6. Is Jesus really = God? Or was Jesus part of a tribe that believed their God would come to them in the form of a human being?

7. If Jesus is not really God, does that mean that the ideas of Jesus weren't profound, weren't drawn from some very core of a human psyche when under enormous duress of life and death?

8. Is it possible that like the Buddha, Lao Tzu, shamen, bramins, druids, Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, etc, Jesus had tapped into major problems of hs day that were plaguing human civilizations at the time, but was NOT God?

9. Is it possible that UNLIKE the Buddha, Lao Tzu, shamen, bramins, druids, Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, etc, Jesus was audacious enough to call himself God? Why would he call himself God if he wasn't? Pride, arrogance, a need to feel enormous power created out of enormous fear and dread, maybe? Or perhaps his defiance of the powers that be, the Pharisees, the Romans, etc, created enormous anger and the grandiosity that might come from such epic anger? I don't know. But all we have left are what was written at the time, possibly embellished, possibly not.

10. Should we therefore throw out the Bible and everything it teaches? I don't know. Do we need to throw out everything the Upanishads teach? Do we need to throw out everything that Buddhism teaches? Do we need to throw out everything that Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Virgil, etc, etc, etc teach?

11. Can we not look at everything that has been written and find some place for it in our minds? Can we learn from the Greek myths that emphasized tragedy, endless temptation, rolling boulders endlessly up a hill, and not need to think that those things ACTUALLY happened? Can we not think the same of the Bible?

¯\_(*_*)_/¯

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:42 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:04 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:03 pm
"Good" is just another word for "moral," which is a synonym for "consonant with the character and purposes of God." So you're going to have the same problem: you're presupposing a dichotomy where none exists.

But the problem is different for Atheists and agnostics. If they assume "good" and "God's nature and purposes" are distinct, then they're going to think they can ask the question coherently, even though they can't really do that. So they're going to think the question is reasonable, when it's not. You can't ask a Theist to stop believing as a Theist and still to give you a Theistic answer. That's not sensible...

Moreover, they're in no position to ask about a predication of something they don't even think exists...two things, really, that don't rationalize with their own a priori suppositions. For in their world, there is neither a "God" nor an objective "good."

Would you say that EVERYTHING that happens in the world is incompatible with the "nature and purposes" of God or are some things compatible?

Obviously, some things are compatible, and some are not. And it's not hard to see the extreme cases that exemplify that.

And if some are compatible and some are not, then how do we know which things that happen are and which aren't?

Well, first we need to know something about the nature and purposes of God. That can only come to us through revelation of some kind.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:49 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:58 pmWe're not, though. It's evident we're actually accelerating it.

True or not, it's a fact that only humans can stop it. God has no part in that equation.

You're going to find out you're wrong about that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:58 pmBe specific: what would you have expected Him to do, since you conclude he "has done absolutely none" of it?

I was very specific as anybody except you can tell.

Anybody can tell you're not being specific at all, actually. So I put the question again: what did you expect God to do, that you think He hasn't done?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:58 pmAnd yet, given human freedom, suffering of innocent parties is inevitable. The only alternative turns out to be the banning of human moral freedom itself. And I doubt you're likely to regard a God that deprived all creatures of volition as "good."

The allowance of human freedom by god to perpetrate any and all kinds of evil to the nth degree denotes god as one immoral monster.

Think again: how important is your personhood? How important is your freedom to choose? How important is your personal autonomy?

People die for these things. Sometimes, people even give up their own lives so that others can have a chance of getting them -- as when a soldier goes to war to secure the country for his wife and kids, or just to ensure the continuation of his nation.

That makes these things awfully important. An "immoral monster" would be an entity that deprived you of these things...not one that guaranteed you have them, despite their bad side effects.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:58 pmInteresting: that's exactly what God has promised to do. It's what is meant by what Locke called, "The Great Day," and we know as "The Judgment." But how soon should it come?
Think it through: think what you're calling for. Because it's coming.

You haven't answered the question...surprise, surprise! I'll repeat:

Here's a question I'd really like a response to: Would you expect some divine reckoning or rebalancing if the existence of the human race were itself in peril, or only a silence as if we were never here?

The human race itself isn't in peril...yet. When it is, we'll see.

But let's play along, as if it had been. Let's take probably the biggest example of a potential "peril to the human race," WWII.

Who's to say what God "hasn't done" about that? For example, for many reasons, historians marvel that Hitler didn't conquer all of Europe. How did he lose the Battle of Britain, for example? How did he fail to press his early wolf-pack advantage in the Atlantic? Why didn't he succeed in wiping out the allies at Dunkirk? How did he not succeed in taking Stalingrad? Yet time and time again, the worst was thwarted, contrary to logistical expectations. We can say that men somehow did these miracles; or we can wonder if there wasn't some real divine intervention involved...

You can attribute it to luck. You can attribute it to divine intervention. Which it was, we will see, one day.

That day is not yet.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:58 pmI think what you must mean is that Dubious has no knowledge of God, and so Dubious assumes nobody else can have such knowledge either

It's true, Dubious has no such knowledge of god for knowledge only exists when something exists to cause it.

But Dubious has no evidence, by his own admission. All that tells us is that Dubious has no evidence. It doesn't tell us what evidence others can have.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:58 pmWell, if you believe some things, and yet don't believe others, on what basis do you make your selections between what you choose to believe and what you choose not to?

Does this really need a reply! One chooses based on its probability,

How does one calculate that?

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:40 pmDoes it apply to those who lived before Jesus and never heard of him?

You're really stymied by that question, aren't you!

Not even close. It's a very easy question to answer. I merely point out that it changes nothing for you, personally. You haven't got any "skin in that game," so it's not really worth my time to bother. Either way, that person isn't you.

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:40 pm...why would such an exceptional sacrifice on the part of Jesus have to be performed in the usual style of a Roman execution under which many thousands suffered the same agony and humiliation?

Name one, what?

Name one of those many dead men. If you can't name any others, ask yourself how, over 2,000 years later, you can definitely name this one.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:32 pm

Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:28 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2023 4:25 pm According to Trajik's scenario, the stakes are the ultimate (literally life and death). A group of miners are trapped in a collapsed mine and are starving. The only possible edible thing in the mine is each other. They haven't yet been rescued and are not sure if they will be rescued or not. They draw straws. After they draw straws they agree among themselves that the first person who kills someone is the one everyone remaining will kill. In other words, they will kill the killer.

That's my interpretation of things. In other words, ONLY if someone gets so desperate that they will kill another person for food, will that justify the others killing the person who killed for food.

But I think you bring up a good point. The scenario is not quite over yet. There would then be two dead people (the one who was killed for food and the one who killed that person for food). Now there's a choice for the remaining survivors who are trapped. Namely, what do they do with the two dead bodies? Do the remaining people, who are also starving, eat the dead bodies or do they abstain? And if they abstain, what might be the new "social contract" among them?

Actually, the group never agreed to kill the the one who tries to kill someone else. When the time came to eat the one with the shortest straw, they found that they could not find it within themselves to kill one of their group.

One of them obviously disagreed because when the rest of the group was sleeping, one of them tried to kill another but before they could do it, or complete the job, because the victim started screaming, they were discovered and the group killed the "killer", so there was only one dead person - the "killer". It was something that just happened - not that they agreed to kill one of them that tries to kill first.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2023 10:15 pm I hate these stupid paradoxical 'thought experiments' that are never going to happen in reality. What if a mother is starving and she has some children? Is she going to eat them? Fucking ridiculous.

Why is it paradoxical? Because moral ideas contradict themselves. If the mother dies, the children also die as they have no one to care for them. Which is worse - that they all die, or some of them do for the others to survive and hopefully the mother can have more kids when things are better.

You say that it never happened in reality, but I'm sure in the entire history of humans this has occurred, where a parent is faced with starvation and many mouths to feed. Nor do you know how things will end up in the future when humans are on the verge of becoming extinct. So it's not fucking ridiculous. You're just short-sighted in this case.

It kind of defeats the purpose of having children if you are just going to eat them when the going gets tough. It's a revolting thing to even think about anyway. I'm sure there are deranged psychopathic mothers around, but it would a be the act of an insane person, and not something that a 'thought experiment' is going to 'shed light on'. It's something that only a childless, spouseless, misfit 'philospher type' would come up with.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:49 amTrue or not, it's a fact that only humans can stop it. God has no part in that equation.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 amYou're going to find out you're wrong about that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 amAnybody can tell you're not being specific at all, actually. So I put the question again: what did you expect God to do, that you think He hasn't done?

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:49 amWould you expect some divine reckoning or rebalancing if the existence of the human race were itself in peril, or only a silence as if we were never here?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 amThe human race itself isn't in peril...yet. When it is, we'll see.
But let's play along, as if it had been. Let's take probably the biggest example of a potential "peril to the human race," WWII.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 amBut Dubious has no evidence, by his own admission. All that tells us is that Dubious has no evidence. It doesn't tell us what evidence others can have.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:49 amOne chooses based on its probability,

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 amHow does one calculate that?

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:49 amYou're really stymied by that question, aren't you!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 am Not even close. It's a very easy question to answer. I merely point out that it changes nothing for you, personally. You haven't got any "skin in that game," so it's not really worth my time to bother. Either way, that person isn't you.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:49 amName one of those many dead men. If you can't name any others, ask yourself how, over 2,000 years later, you can definitely name this one.