The ‘traditional’ objections to a wholly naturalistic metaphysics, within the modern Western philosophical tradition, involve the vexed notions of freedom and consciousness. But there is, I think, a much deeper and more interesting line of criticism to naturalism, and that involves the notion of intentionality and its closely correlated notion of normativity.
What is involved in my belief that I’m drinking a beer as I type this? Well, my belief is about something — namely, the beer that I’m drinking. But what does this “aboutness” consist of? It requires, among other things, a commitment that I have undertaken — that I am prepared to respond to the appropriate sorts of challenges and criticisms of my belief. I’m willing to play the game of giving and asking for reasons, and my willingness to be so treated is central to how others regard me as their epistemic peer. But there doesn’t seem to be any way that the reason-giving game can be explained entirely in terms of the neurophysiological story of what’s going on inside my cranium. That neurophysiological story is a story of is the case, and the reason-giving story is essentially a normative story — of what ought to be the case.
And if Hume is right — as he certainly seems to be! — in saying that one cannot derive an ought-statement from an is-statement,and if naturalism is an entirely descriptive/explanatory story that has no room for norms, then in light of the central role that norms play in human life (including their role in belief, desire, perception, and action), it is reasonable to conclude that naturalism cannot be right.
(Of course, it does not follow from this that any version of theism or ‘supernaturalism’ must be right, either.)
William,
That doesn’t make sense. Morality, math and logic are not identical, so God cannot be each of those things.
It’s the same mistake people make when they say that God is love, or God is mercy.
Also, you’ve said that God created us for a purpose. Do you really think that’s equivalent to “Logic created us for a purpose?”
William,
Why are the ground of being’s purposes morally obligatory if mine, yours, Donald Trump’s, or the pimply-faced teenager’s are not? How do you get from “X is the ground of being” to “X’s purposes are morally obligatory”, except by assuming it?
Yes, and that impales you on the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma (or if you insist, the variant of the Euthyphro dilemma that I introduced above). Most of us find it ridiculous to believe that gratuitous child torture could be objectively moral, and you yourself have said that this is inconceivable to you. Yet now you are admitting that it could be moral, if that happened to be God’s nature.
You are assuming that God must provide you with an accurate sense of morality, at least with regard to “self-evidently true” moral statements. That is yet another ungrounded assumption.
We can choose to act immorally or to disregard the rules of math and logic. We cannot choose to “disobey” gravity.
keiths:
William:
An objective standard of morality external to God and us. I don’t see that assumption as any wilder than the other assumptions you are willing to make.
What is inconsistent or incoherent about the assumption of an external, objective standard of morality? I don’t think there’s any evidence for one, but I don’t think the idea itself is incoherent. Why do you?
keiths:
William:
If so, then why should there be an assumption that yours, mine, or Donald Trump’s morality is subjective? What distinguishes God’s morality from mine in a way that justifies the claim that his morality is objective, while mine is not?
Says who? If we were going to assume an objective morality (because remember, we are performing the WJM trick of assuming that our subjective morality is objective), I would argue that we should assume that there is an external standard of goodness, that our consciences reflect it, though imperfectly, and that God falls well short of the standard, given the vast amount of suffering and evil that we find in the world he created.
I don’t think you’ve shown any of those things.
1. There is no incoherence or inconsistency in the idea that morality is subjective.
2. An objective morality, if it exists, need not be grounded in God.
3. An objective morality need not be unalterable.
4. Nothing about the “ground of being” elevates his morality from subjective to objective.
5. Objective morality does not require a purpose.
Bruce,
I think Harris fails because he is implicitly assuming a free-floating ought: namely, that promoting the well-being of conscious minds is objectively moral. I agree that it’s moral, but I don’t think that Harris can establish that it is objectively moral except by assuming it.
The problem here is that there is no way to demonstrate that these moral truths objectively exist. You can assume them as axioms, but I see no way of confirming their existence objectively.
Emotions and prescriptions for action vary from person to person, so I don’t see how they could be a basis for objective morality.
I’m not sure what you mean by “individual cases”, but if truth is not a property of moral statements, then contradiction is not possible, so any moral statement can be objective, along with its contradiction. If murder is both moral and immoral, or neither, then our “objective” moral system isn’t doing its job.
Well, as I’ve mentioned before, people do accept moral systems in which they are disadvantaged from the start. There are women who accept their subjugation in traditional Christianity, and there are untouchables who do (or at least did) accept their plight within the Hindu caste system.
I think that an “obviously correct criterion” for morality will always have a free-floating ought behind it; namely, “things that satisfy this criterion are morally good”.
I don’t think they can, because whatever the X is that a pragmatic approach seeks to maximize, minimize, or optimize, there must be a corresponding free-floating ought that says “We ought to maximize, minimize, or optimize X”.
The dilemma is solved by the assumption that morality is part of the grounds of existence. IOW, all sentient entities draw “what is good” from the same existential grounds, which I refer to as “god”.
William,
I responded to the “ground of being” argument already:
Once again, the Euthypro dilemma is about divine command or divine will – if something is good because god wills it; or if god is subject to external good.
from: http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/christian-ethics/divine-command-theory/the-euthyphro-dilemma/
But this is exactly the case in my moral theory. Goodness is independent of god’s will because it is part of god’s unchanging nature. The good that is in any willful act of god doesn’t come from the fact of it being willed, but comes from the nature of god that informs the shape of what is willed. God cannot will what is not in god’s nature, but that nature is not external to god. The Dilemma collapses. It is irrelevant to my moral theory.
Keiths’ non-Euthypro “dilemma” is that if god’s nature was different, then morality would be different; keiths claims I “admitted” this.
But, what did I actually say? I said:
But, as we know, context is important. Earlier in this thread, I said:
Because I admit that if an absurdity was true, an absurd condition would follow is not the same as “admitting” that god’s nature could be different from what it is.
The point I was making is that even if such an absurd state of existence was the case, the Euthypro dilemma would still be irrelevant, because it’s not god’s “will”, even in the absurd example, that makes a thing good; it’s the nature of existence. If it was the nature of our existence that GCT was moral (an absurd state), all sane, sufficiently sentient entities would agree (sane and sufficiently sentient by whatever absurd standards would exist in that Bizarro world).
Keith the goes on to say virtually the same thing I said for his “counter-example” of an assumed objective morality:
What god is he referring to? If some entity created the universe, and that entity is subject to an external grounds of “goodness”, then what I am referring to is that same external grounds of “goodness”; only, I would be calling that existential grounds of goodness “god” and not whatever “pimply-faced teenager” created our physical universe and did such a bad job of it (according to keiths).
Keiths is misunderstanding my argument. He thinks I begin with some anthropomorphic god and then work my way forward. “God” is a label I have put on what I consider to be a necessary being required to solve existential problems like morality (and sufficient cause, the existence of math and logic, etc.). Whatever the existential, necessary grounds for goodness is, that is what I’m calling god, not whatever entities may be imperfectly interpreting it and perhaps creating universes.
What is good isn’t good **because** an entity created the universe (or just us), what is good is good because that goodness is a characteristic of the grounds of existence of all possible worlds (excluding absurd world concepts where 1+1=3).
Because of the necessary consequences. My theory of absolute morality includes necessary consequences. Subjective morality doesn’t. I’m hardly obligated to act a certain way when the consequences I reap and which are generated from my behavior are arbitrary.
William,
And once again, I don’t care whether you call my dilemma “the Euthyphro dilemma” or something else. The label doesn’t matter. The dilemma applies, regardless of what you call it:
You take the second horn, which means that if it were true that God’s nature caused him to want us to torture babies, then it would be good to torture babies. Needless to say, most people, including you, find that absurd.
You attempt to avoid this problem by arguing that God’s nature cannot be such that he would want us to torture babies:
This simply doesn’t follow. You haven’t offered any reason why God must grant us reliable consciences, even regarding so-called “self-evident” moral truths; and in any case, it’s clear that he hasn’t, given the existence of psychopaths.
God is clearly willing to allow broken or nonexistent consciences, so you cannot argue from the ones you define as healthy to a conclusion about God’s nature. That would be circular.
By the way, I’m enjoying this exchange and I sincerely appreciate the fact that you are answering my questions and responding to my challenges. Thanks.
keiths:
William:
The problem is that “necessary consequences” don’t generate moral obligation. If I drop a fresh egg from thirty feet onto concrete, it will splatter. That is a necessary consequence of my action, but it has no bearing on the morality or immorality of dropping eggs.
Necessary consequences can influence my behavior by providing incentives or disincentives. If the concrete in question is my driveway, I might be dissuaded from dropping the egg onto it. But again, that doesn’t mean that dropping the egg is immoral.
That’s because I haven’t asserted that god “must” grant us reliable consciences. That would be a rather foolish thing to assert, don’t you think?
That would be like claiming that since there are blind and color-blind people, we cannot reach any informed conclusions about the nature of what we hold to be objectively existent visual phenomena.
Of course, all arguments about anything taken to be objectively existent requires a distinction between functional and broken or faulty sensory equipment, as well as the assumption that we are not delusional.
They are the only thing that can. How can I possibly be obligated to make certain choices if the ramifications of those choices are entirely subjective and arbitrary, and likely chaotic and unpredictable?
Not all necessary consequences have anything to do with morality.
William,
The problem is that you can’t validate your conscience in the way you can validate your visual system. Here’s how I explained it on another thread:
keiths said:
I don’t think I’ve argued that; I think I’ve characterized that potential as an absurdity in the same way that a world where 1+1=3 is an absurdity.
keiths said:
Keiths, do you think that a world where GCT is moral is an absurdity? Because it seems here you’re wanting me to make an argument about what it is “needless to say” most people consider absurd.
keiths:
William:
You’re confusing coercion with morality. When a North Korean prison camp inmate is coerced into ratting out his brother, that doesn’t make his action moral. Likewise, if the “ground of being” coerces us into doing something via “necessary consequences”, that doesn’t make it moral either.
keiths:
William:
But you just gave “necessary consequences” as your reason for why the “ground of being’s” purposes are morally obligatory. If not all necessary consequences are related to morality, as you concede, then how do I know that the ground of being’s purposes are morally binding on me?
keiths:
William:
You can derive mathematical contradictions from 1+1=3, which is how we know it is absurd. How do you know that a God who wants us to torture babies is an absurdity?
Hi Keith: My post was quick off the quick summaries written as much to see if I could express my understanding as to try to explain it or justify a point of view to readers.
So it is likely that any errors you find are mine and not limitations of the views, any of which I believe is still considered viable by some philosophers (except maybe Harris, although he could be interpreted as a version of pragmatism).
I’d have to research deeper to respond but for now I am concentrating on understanding Kitcher in depth so I will leave it to you to explore these ideas in more detail if you are interested.
Keith:
I did a particularly poor job of explaining this idea.
It is an attempt at a reference to a general theory of truth called deflationism which basically says that asserting ” ‘X’ is true” adds nothing to simply asserting “X”. That is, there is nothing adding by trying to define a general idea of truth. (eg Nothing is added to “Paris is the capital for France” by saying ” ‘Paris is the capital of France’ is true”. In both cases, you need to discover if Paris is the capital of France
I think S. Blackburn uses this general approach as part of his attempt to develop a moral theory called “quasi-realism”
keiths said:
here keiths is producing an argument that since broken or flawed consciences exist, then if morality objectively exists, we cannot reach sound conclusions about what is moral and what is not. Unfortunately, if that is true of an objective morality, it is even worse for subjective morality where the lines themselves are held to be imaginary.
WJM said:
Here I’m showing that because we know the sensory equipment of some or many individuals is flawed, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we cannot reach sound conclusions about the nature of what that sense is perceiving.
keiths said:
1. Except for blind people.
2. Nobody who can see the lines is unsure if the lines exist at all though they might be mistaken about the lengths.
3. Not everyone is fooled by the illusion.
4. You don’t need a ruler to recognize that the lines are the same length after the nature of the illusion is pointed out.
I’m not sure what your argument here is supposed to be, keiths. Are you saying that if we do not have a precise, objective means of determining if a behavior is moral, then we have no way of knowing if morality is objective at all? It doesn’t seem to me that this could be your argument, since I’ve already agreed that we cannot “know”, in any such scientific sense, if morality objectively exists at all. My argument has always been that we must assume it exists in order to prevent the problematic logical conclusions of a subjective morality.
Since you seem to agree that GCT is ubiquitously immoral upon pain of absurdity, it also seems to me that you agree that self-evidently true moral statements are available – IOW, there are moral statements cannot be illusionary and are as universally real among sane people as the statement that the lines exist, even if we disagree if the lines are all the same length.
Perhaps then your argument is that we cannot know in a scientific or relatively certain way if various particular things are objectively immoral or not, such as abortion. But, that debate is secondary. The debate about whether not a particular line is the same length as another is secondary to the debate about whether or not the lines objectively exist in the first place.
It is only if we agree that the lines objectively exist in the first place that we can have a rational debate about whether or not they are the same length. IOW, a rational debate about whether or not abortion is moral utterly depends upon us assuming some objective arbiter of morality that can make such a determination, even if that determination is difficult to make.
Otherwise we are arguing about the length of imaginary lines.
Well, I suppose one could argue that statements like “torturing babies is wrong” are self-evidently true in any possible world (where the where babies and torture exist), that necessary truths are a priori, and hence that implies the existence of abstract moral objects reflecting /embodying the moral truths, which can then be apprehended solely by reason.
One could argue further that such objects imply the existing of a necessary being to create them/embody them/be the ground for them, although secular philosophers would not.
1+1=3 is a self-evident absurdity. There is no ‘mathematical contradiction” that you can “derive” from 1+1=3 that demonstrates it more clearly than the false equation itself.
keiths asks:
I’m not really understanding what you mean by “know” and “a god”. GCT is self-evidently immoral, regardless of whatever you’re referring to as “a god” says or wants. Since I am calling the grounds by which self-evidently true statements exist “god”, then “a god” that wants us to commit GCT cannot be what I am referring to as god.
keiths said:
No, you are.
I haven’t argued that the necessary consequences make a thing moral; I argued that the necessary consequences is what makes moral behavior obligatory.
keiths said:
There are necessary consequences to our actions that are due to physical laws. These actions and necessary consequences may have nothing to do do with morality. That moral/immoral behavior also produces necessary consequences doesn’t mean that all necessary consequences are arrived at via moral choices.
All moral choices have necessary consequences. Not all necessary consequences are caused by moral behavior.
William J. Murray,
Given your philosophical pretensions, you might try representing the above in formal propositional logic, then do the same for the God-babies thing, and see if you end up with logical equivalence – since you seem to be claiming logical equivalence.
If you disagree that GCT is self-evidently immoral, my moral theory argument doesn’t apply to you. What is self-evidently true is what is used to make arguments about other things, and what is used to prove other things. By defniition, you cannot prove a self-evidently true statement.
If GCT is morally good, then nothing about morality makes sense or is worth considering.
William,
In other words, you feel really, really strongly that gratuitous child torture is immoral, and you’re convinced that you can’t possibly be wrong — therefore GCT is objectively immoral.
It’s the second part I’m having trouble with. How do you get from strong feelings and a sense of certainty to “X is objectively moral/immoral”?
keiths said:
No, that’s not what I said. That’s what you keep saying regardless of what I actually say.
I never asserted that I went from “strong feelings to a sense of certainty”, so I certainly don’t have to explain a transition I never claimed to have occurred. As I have said many times before, if you disagree that GCT is self-evidently immoral, then my argument doesn’t apply to you. My argument certainly has no footing against those who hold that GCT could be moral.
I don’t see where you answered that question. Do you think that gratuitous child torture could be moral? Do you think it is self-evidently immoral?
William,
Then you haven’t answered my question, which was:
Your initial answer was
Now you are saying that “necessary consequences” only make something obligatory, not morally obligatory.
So again:
keiths asked again:
Already answered. According to my moral theory, the reason a behavior is moral in the first place is if it is consonant with the fundamental aspect of existence we refer to as “goodness” (the purpose of creation); the reason moral behavior is obligatory is because there are necessary consequences to both moral and immoral behavior.
Note:
Keiths asked me:
Keiths isn’t asking me why “the ground of being’s purpose” (not “purposes”, keiths) is moral (I’ve answered that many times; we assume it to be the source of what goodness, or morality, fundamentally is); he’s asking me why why “the ground of being’s purpose” is morally obligatory. His question is why it is obligatory to behave morally (in accordance with existential purpose.)
My answer was:
This is why behaving according to the fundamental good purpose of existence (moral behavior) is obligatory and obeying Trump’s or some “pimply-faced teenager’s” morality is not obligatory; their moral preferences do not carry any necessary consequences. They only offer arbitrary consequences.
I certainly cannot be obligated to act in any particular fashion if the consequences of that action are arbitrary or chaotic. I might feel like it; I might choose to; but I’m certainly not obligated to.
Next, keiths tries to characterize me as “not answering his question” and changing my answer:
Keiths seems to have forgotten the entire context of this discussion. We’ve already discussed why/how morality is objective/absolute in my moral theory (it is assumed to be an aspect of the ground of existence), which explains the difference between my morality and “Donald Trump’s or some pimply-faced teenager’s” morality (which are not postulated as the ground of existence). We already covered that.
What his question referred to (obviously) was why my assumed to be existentially-grounded morality was theoretically any more obligatory than “Donald Trump’s or some pimply-faced teenager’s” morality; the reason my morality is obligatory and theirs is not is because my morality has necessary consequences.
I didn’t change my answer, and I answered keiths’ actual question the first time. I just didn’t realize keiths had apparently forgotten our entire conversation up to that point where I had explained my view of objective morality when he asked me what made that morality obligatory.
What makes my existentially-grounded morality obligatory, keiths, is that it carries with it necessary consequences. Necessary consequences don’t make behavior moral; they makes moral behavior obligatory.
William,
Your comment doesn’t answer my question.
Dropping eggs on concrete, eating pork, and killing someone all have necessary consequences, courtesy of the “ground of being”.
Which are morally obligatory (or in this case, morally prohibited), and how do you make that determination?
keiths said:
The ones that have to do with morality
A combination of conscience and logic.
It’s interesting that as often as keiths claims that I refuse to answer his questions, he has so far refused to answer a couple of mine:
1. Do you think that gratuitous child torture could be moral?
2. Do you think it is self-evidently immoral?
Here’s a question for you then. What does the word “gratuitous” add to your question?
Stark, unequivocal clarity.
William,
I genuinely appreciate the fact that you’ve been willing to answer my questions the last couple of days, and I said so last night:
William:
If you think the questions are important, all you have to do is ask again. I’ll either answer them or explain why I choose not to (as in the case of some of Sriskandarajah’s off-topic questions).
Objectively? No, because I don’t think objective morality exists.
Subjectively? Not in my morality, but more broadly, yes, because many theists believe that it is moral if God commands it, as he did in the Old Testament.
No. I feel strongly that it is immoral, and it doesn’t take a lot of moral reflection for me to reach that (subjective) conclusion, but it isn’t “self-evidently” immoral.
This is not actually true. Working within Peano’s axiom system, assuming that 1 + 1 = 3, you can derive that 0 is its own successor. This contradicts the axiom which states that 0 is not the successor of any nonnegative integer.
William,
1. Do you think that gratuitous child torture could be moral?
Since for most of human history people were considered to be property, then yes, it was self evidently true that exercising one’s property rights was moral.
Unless you are saying it only matters what present day humans find self evident
keiths:
William’s responses were
…which is circular and therefore fails to answer the question, and
…which also fails to answer the question, since I asked William how he would make the determination, not what tools or faculties he would use.
I’ll ask again.
keiths:
William:
If the pimply-faced teenager consistently punishes the inhabitants of his basement universe when they won’t have sex for his voyeuristic pleasure, then there really are necessary consequences for them. The PFT’s moral preferences do carry necessary consequences.
You need to find another reason to claim that the “ground of being’s” moral preferences are binding, if yours and mine (or the PFT’s) are not.
Bruce:
keiths:
Bruce:
I think the problem is in getting from “self-evidently true” to “necessarily true”.
So-called “self-evident moral truths” aren’t necessarily true. Their negation causes no logical inconsistencies.
If William thinks that X is objectively moral, and self-evidently so, fine; we could consistently assert that X is objectively immoral and that William’s moral compass is out of whack. No contradiction, no inconsistency.
“Consistently punishing” is not the same as “necessary consequences”. Consequences are not punishments.
No, I don’t, since I never claimed such “preferences” even existed.
That’s like asking me how I would decide which road to take, then I say I’d use my own sense of direction coupled with a map and logic, and then you say “I didn’t ask you what tools or faculties you’d use.”
Eh … what? When I sense that a situation has a moral element with my conscience, unless it is blatant and obvious I utilize a moral model (map) I’ve developed using logic in conjunction with self-evident and necessary moral truths to determine what my appropriate behavior is in relation to the issue.
I use my conscience (a faculty) to determine IF a situation has a moral component, and I use a logical model built on experience (a tool) to parse moral situations that are not self-evident or obvious in nature.
I don’t see how one can make any determinations about anything without using a faculty or a tool, keiths. I don’t see how one can explain how they make determinations without referring to what faculties and tools they would use in so doing.
William,
But punishments are consequences, which is what matters for your argument, and they can be necessary consequences if they are applied consistently.
keiths:
William:
I was just echoing your choice of words, but substitute “purposes” for “moral preferences” if you like. My objection still stands:
William,
Re this, how about a worked-out example?
For each of the following, tell us
a) whether it reflects a moral obligation or prohibition, and
b) the exact reasoning that leads you to that conclusion.
Try to avoid circularity this time.
The three actions are
1) dropping eggs on concrete,
2) eating pork, and
3) killing someone.
These all have “necessary consequences”, courtesy of the “ground of being”, so you’ll need to identify a separate criterion to distinguish the moral issues from the non-moral ones.
keiths,
As per your pimply-faced basement universe creator (PFBUC), you have forgotten that there are two aspects to “necessary consequences”. You are only focused on the receiving end. Not only can you not escape the consequences, the system cannot be any other way. If the system can be set up differently, or if the moral rules can be changed, the consequences that result are not necessary because the system or the rules can be changed.
As I’ve said many times, god cannot change what is moral.
The reason I employ such a system in my model (god cannot even change it) is because I know it is not moral for a tyrant, no matter how benign, to arbitrarily set up a system and willfully force others to obey it or else, even if it is for their own good. Such a morality as your (PFBUC) represents is a divine command morality, which I’ve already said I’ve rejected a priori because it is unacceptable (even if true).
The consequences of such a PFBUC system are not necessary because the system itself is arbitrary.
If you don’t know what they are (you can’t list them), how can you know if they’ve changed?
I wasn’t circular the first or second time I answered that question.
I can’t tell if any of your examples have a moral component. You’ve provided no motive or context and none of them alert my conscience as-is.
How does your ‘objective morality’ answer the trolley problem?
Do you pull the lever William?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
William,
is because I know it is not moral for a tyrant, no matter how benign, to arbitrarily set up a system and willfully force others to obey it or else, even if it is for their own good.
But it is based on the same reasoning as your system, God’s essence as the source of ” good”. God ,by definition, cannot command anything other than ” good”, it is exactly as arbitrary as your system.
The only difference is the assumption of how God’s Nature is comprehensible ,
You assume that thru subjective reason/conscience that ” good” can be determined, divine command assumes a divinely inspired Word Of God.
Such a morality as your (PFBUC) represents is a divine command morality, which I’ve already said I’ve rejected a priori because it is unacceptable (even if true).
I agree better to be judged for your own mistakes than for someone else’s.
No, it isn’t, because god in my system doesn’t decide or pick what is good; it is an unalterable aspect of its fundamental nature that cannot be changed by will.
Look up the definition of arbitrary.