Imagine my surprise when I heard that atheism was based on a search for truth. We all know that’s false.
Let’s examine a couple recent examples.
Patrick claimed that I did not provide any links.
You’ll note the complete absence of any links…
I provided links. Patrick lied.
KN claimed that Immanuel Kant was an atheist philosopher.
KN lied,
Patrick demands morals of others while denying that there are any objective moral obligations.
Why do atheists care about what is true and what is immoral?
Why do atheists attack the object of their ignorance?
Kantian Naturalist,
Yes, I find in this spiritually-informed absolutism a belief that the interlocutor considers their morality a fundamental part of their ‘separate self’. That, regardless of the time and place they find themselves, they would have the morality of a white middle-class 21st Century American conservative. (“Racism” indeed! Hahahaha!)
Murray takes a slightly amended tack: he considers assuming that fiction to be necessary to make ‘logical’ sense of moral senses and actions. I don’t.
One issue that strikes me, that I’ve alluded to before, is the relationship to language. The very term ‘Moral good’ in my vocabulary attaches to certain ‘virtuous’ characteristics, some universal, some more local. ‘Moral ill’ likewise. So, transport me to another time and place, speaking a different language and having had a different upbringing, and I am supposed to imagine myself into the shoes of a mid-20th Century German speaker. I’m not so sure I can even do that. The people offering these thought experiments certainly can’t. Of course, when it comes to exterminating Jews as a moral good, I do think I would disagree. But I’m not in that situation, which has much more potential variants than simply ‘being German, then’. Raised by rabid Nazis, would I conform or rebel? Who knows?
If I had a second X chromosome instead of a Y, I’d almost certainly fancy men. I have a hard time imagining that – being attracted to women is something I find quite fundamental to my self – but can hardly not accept its truth. This does not make fancying men equivalent from the standpoint of the me-with-a-Y. As a pithy saying in these parts has it, when someone comes up with an unworkable hypothetical commencing “if …” – “if your auntie had bollocks, she’d be your uncle”.
Allan Miller said:
Well, to be fair, I’ve had at least one atheist in this forum admit that very thing, and there are other atheists who have admitted this and there’s quite a bit of effort made by many atheistic moral philosophers to extricate themselves from this problem.
that is what you said
interesting assertion,himself
There is no problem too big that you can’t assume your way out of it, I assume.
Who? Me? No, not quite….
Can you guess why?
What, the ‘Hitler’ problem? Do you have any citations for this?
William J. Murray,
It doesn’t follow that subjective rules should only apply to the subject in question. Your argument is so silly I can’t believe anyone could fall for it. What if we address the definitions of subjective / objective as KN suggested?
That would require thinking about alternative conceptual frameworks to the one in which Murray’s position is the only coherent and consistent logical-cum-practical possibility.
Why is one more compelled to accept moral equivalence with Hitler than – say – a cat, I wonder? I stop my cat doing things I don’t want it to do to wildlife. The cat says: ‘fuck off, you have no grounds for interfering, subjectivist. I’m a fucking cat’.
Yes, I have a talking cat. And?
William J. Murray,
Who’s that then? Can we ask them?
Dazz said:
That’s a keeper.
Do go on.
They just want a soundbite for the pulpit I think. No doubt we’ll see an OP at UD at some point where certain words are bolded for effect.
http://tinyurl.com/zyxevkn
I linked to this already.
Moral Subjectivism = Nazis Were Doing Good and We Shouldn’t Have Stopped Them
I guess Moral Subjectivism = Cats Were Doing Good and We Shouldn’t Have Stopped Them just does not scan as well.
William,
Seems you and yours over at UD have quite the Hitler obsession. I wonder why that is?
Maybe one should only hypothetically-not-intervene if the Hypothetical Other is a ‘moral agent’?
Can we be sure Hitler was? I think I might be inclined to intervene – or rather, in this case, pass judgement from 75 years in the future – just in case.
Still rather forgets that morality is not simply about judging the actions of others, though that seems to figure large in the rationale of some theistic finger-waggers. (Yes, yes, slight irony noted).
Speaking of ‘Athiesm, Truth and Morals’ I notice one of Williams sources that he cites for support his views on gun ownership are true is in the news:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/nras-favorite-academic-john-lott-exposed-as-a-data-fudging-sock-puppeting-fraud/
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326
WJM said of Lott’s study:
Do you still stand by everything you said on that comment WJM? Still maintain the validity of that study as factual support for your personal views on gun ownership?
OMagain,
William’s views are no different from patrick’s on that subject, OMagain.
So does anyone have properly compiled statistics that sort out the various motives?
Is there any correct way to compare mass killings per se, regardless of means?
William J. Murray,
I’ll try the card game analogy again:
If someone prefers to play poker rather than bridge, isn’t that a subjective choice? Does that mean that people playing card games together can each play by their own preferred rules? Of course that would be ridiculous, you’re just equivocating and it’s quite embarrassing if you ask me
Good example, dazz. I’m curious to hear the response (if any).
oops, wrong response.
dazz,
Category error.
What do you mean Richard? mind elaborating?
What’s embarrassing, dazz, is that you can’t even follow a simple argument. I haven’t said that, under subjective morality, there’s a problem with with you playing your particular subjective game; what I’ve said repeatedly is that the problem arises when you attempt to apply the rules of the game you are playing to the different games others are playing.
Let me try to make this clear using your own analogy. You and your group are playing bridge, and another group is playing poker. The term “game” = “morality adhered to by some group”. You look over at one of the guy’s playing poker and watch him play, then you jump up, run over there and say “Hey! You’re playing the game wrong! Stop that!”
You do this not because he is playing poker incorrectly, but rather because you think your bridge rules should apply to the guys playing poker. You are the one in error. Subjective rules only apply to the subject; bridge rules only apply to those playing bridge. Poker rules only apply to those playing poker. The rules are not objective in the sense that they govern all games, but rather are subjective with respect to what game is being played.
This means you have no business, using your own card game analogy, telling anyone else that they are playing their game wrong, nor do you have any business intervening in their game behavior in any way – physically, intellectually, or by law.
It is only when you assume that there is one universal game being played by one absolute set of rules can anyone justify moral interventions unless outside of the principle of because I feel like it, because I can.
dazz,
I think that abiding by rules within a game is different from choosing which game to play. Apologies if I haven’t grasped your argument.
William J. Murray,
You don’t get the analogy. According to your logic, if Mike and his friends are playing poker but Joe prefers bridge, then Mike has no business telling Joe he can’t join the game playing by the bridge rules, because Mike’s preference for poker is “subjective”.
No, not because “I feel it” or because “I can”. Moral rules are assumed to be universal in essence just because that’s what morality is all about (just like card game rules are supposed to apply to everyone willing to play a game), but that doesn’t take away the subjectivity in the evaluation of each particular moral rule. It’s still up to us to elucidate what’s right or wrong, and it’s another huge non-sequitur to claim that the only way to go about that is to “do as one pleases” just because one ackowledges one’s subjective moral judgement
And of course, it’s all pointless, because even if objective/absolute morals exist, that doesn’t help one bit in your retarded quest for proving god
😀
You mean maybe it’s not just different rules at UD, but a different game? And people ought not complain that they decided to play that game when they found out what the rules were? Maybe Barry will give you your money back.
Mung,
Of course its a different game. UD is where Baghdad Barry says one thing when he knows the opposite to be true, because greater good objective morality or something. It’s where Phoodoo gets his science education. It’s the safety you and WJM retreat to after a bad day,
Barry’s purse, you can give his money back to Richard
dazz,
Barry’s purse is tiny, it couldn’t hold an amount I’d care for, only the smallest, most shrivelled things.
This is just hilarious. You compared the time I post there against the time I post here and have some actual facts at your disposal to support your claims? Nah, you’re just another atheist out to score cheap rhetorical points regardless of the actual facts. Bully for you!
Oh, and just another reason I could care less about how you think I ought to act at UD.
Mung,
Just keeping being you. The comedy is the payoff.
I do think I’m hilarious. Glad to have confirmation from a biased source.
dazz said:,
No, it’s you that doesn’t understand the difference between subjective and objecitve morality, much less the entire argument.
Not by moral subjectivists, dazz. Only objectivists assume moral rules are universal in essence.
The irony here is that you’re making the same argument I’ve been making while thinking that you’re disagreeing with me. If you believe that there are in essence universal moral rules that we all individually and subjectively interpret, we are in complete agreement.
Looking over dazz’s posts, though, it’s easy to see he/she contradicts him/herself.
First it’s people playing different card games in groups that obey those different rule sets, then when the glaring flaw in that view is pointed out about telling other people they are playing their game wrong, he/she changes the analogy to everyone playing the same universal game but playing it differently because of different individual interpretations of the rules – which would make dazz a moral objectivist.
The only rational justifications for intervening in the moral behavior of others is if (1) the behavior is considered objectively wrong and because of this one has the moral authority or obligation to intervene (which includes the assessment that the other person is incorrectly interpreting a moral universal), or (2) one’s morality is “because I feel like it, because I can”, and so any behavior is justified to pursue one’s own personal ends.
William J. Murray,
Is it heck! Universality is not ‘what it is about’, it’s what you are assuming it would have to be about to make it worth your while playing.
And round we go again. So if one happens to believe there is one set of rules, and one implicitly assumes one knows what they are, one can intervene. Moral equivalency with ISIS, that most logical of groups. But of course you’d deny that, they must be wrong because killing is ‘self-evidently wrong’. Except when you want to go to war with someone, or blast an intruder with your gun, or lethally inject someone.
Morality begins at home. Whether or not it has ‘universal’ qualities (I think it does, just not externally adjudicated ones), it does not turn on the extent to which it gives you warrant to stick your nose into other people’s affairs.
Allan Miler said:
dazz said that, not me.
I deny it because it’s not true. You might try to argue that ISIS and I have equivalent moral system premises, but even that is wrong, because ISIS’s objective morality is command-authority and mine is a form of natural law objectivism.
I don’t know that I ever claimed that killing was self-evidently wrong.
What?
The third party is who we are obligated to. The tortured child or the beaten woman. No third party – no obligation to intervene.
ETA correct spellchecker.
Assuming you would feel no moral obligation to intervene when a despondent, sobbing teenager is about to throw him- or herself off a bridge to their death below, so what? What difference does it make to the subjectivist’s problem of intervention if there is a third party involved? It’s not the 3rd party’s moral behavior you are intervening in as if your subjective morality was objectively binding on them, it is the 2nd party’s.
This brings up the whole problem of “obligation”. Obligated by what? You say you are “obligated” to the third party – I assume you mean “morally” obligated. But, how can that be? You don’t even know what their moral system is, and even if you did, as a subjectivist you certainly aren’t logically obligated to act in accordance with their moral system.
Also, what if that child was brought up to believe that getting cigarettes put out on his/her face was morally right?
So no, any moral “obligation” you have can only be to yourself, not to the third party. I’m not sure what that would mean other than a semantic restatement of “because I feel like it, because I can” in order to make you feel better about yourself for inflicting your subjective views onto others by intervening in their perfectly moral (subjectively speaking) behavior.
I don’t need the word “morally”, William.
I broadly accept the social obligations imposed by the cultural consensus of the society I am part of. Where I disagree, I can argue for change.
So? What difference does that make?
You don’t see any third party here?
Will you not act in defiance of social norms if you feel you should?
It sidesteps the futile argument about absolute morality.
I probably do from time to time.