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?
Evasion. There is no third party; there is a despondent teenager and you. I assume that the reason you evade and imply an unseen 3rd party is because you would intervene, which contradicts your prior position that your obligation is to the third party.
So your system boils down to “what I feel like, what I can’. If you feel like obeying the “broad social consensus”, you will; if you feel like it, and you can, you will act in defiance of it; if you fee like it, and you can, you will argue for change.
Do you just have a hard time admitting that your moral philosophy is “because I feel like it, because I can”?
His family?
@ WJM
Just had a narrow window for commenting. No more time for a while.
Who said his family was the cause of their despondency and sadness? Who said anyone was the cause? You’re inventing a convenient imaginary 2nd party in order to salvage your obviously mistaken assertion that it is only the presence of a third party that obligates you to act.
Don’t have a rule book. Events arrive unplanned though one can take precautions like learning first aid or counselling.
Stand by that. No time to argue now. May pick up later. Must go.
I think this is the point where I walk way, claiming victory.
You’ré under no obligation here to continue, moral or otherwise. I’m certainly not interested in “winning” any debate. Just tossing out my thoughts. Try to pick up later but must go.
Much like your thoughts on gun control, actual facts don’t actually matter to you.
That’s rich coming from you.
Then presumably you can give an example of where you have intervened in such a way and done so justifiably beyond you feeling like that. Please detail that and explain on what basis you have intervened, justifying it against a suitable precent of objective morality.
For bonus points: If a teenage Hitler was about to throw themselves off a bridge, would you intervene William?
William,
SImply untrue, but I see that truth is malleable under your worldview.
No, it’s not different interpretations of the rules. It’s simply that the rules are supposed to apply to everyone willing to play. That’s just the way they are defined and the fact that people may have different preferences for rules doesn’t change that. Once again, according to your logic, you would have no business telling someone who is playing poker with you that he can’t pick a sixth card just because he feels like doing so.
False dichotomy. but hey, two can play that game. Might as well tell you that unless you have full access to universal, absolute, objective moral rules, you have no business intervening in the moral behavior of others because it’s just your subjective interpretation of the assumed, unknown objective rules.
The crux of the matter here IMO is to realize that it’s up to us: we only have our subjective moral judgement to parse morality and pretending that it emanates from some unknown “being”:
1. doesn’t make it true
2. doesn’t help in the slightest to determine what’s moral and what’s not
3. empirically leads people to justify the most obnoxious actions “just because god wants me to” or “just because that’s what god’s nature dictates”
Getting rid of unnecessary, authoritative entities forces us to take responsibility for our own morality, and that makes my moral system superior to yours.
I’ve asked William to describe a situation where he intervened and on what objective moral basis he did that. So presumably that’ll help answer some of these points. If he chooses to cherry-pick that question anyway, out of the many pending.
Apparently William’s moral system approves of William telling people that faith healers can cure cancer. So I already knew that dazz 😛
Will you be creating a fart-animation like William Dembski did when he walked away from Dover after declaring victory?
Then why do you complain about the rules incessantly, good for thee but not for me?
Mung,
Out of interest, who is complaining about the rules at UD? Can you point to a specific comment?
Rather I suspect you are really talking about people’s opinions of the moderation policy at UD then them actually complaining about it.
I can understand, being pitied is generally undesirable. So we change it as best we can. Here we reflect it back and turn it into a taunt that people cannot play by the stated rules of the game and that then reflects poorly on them. But we can all critique the rules and how they are applied. I mean, you can do so for the moderation policies at TSZ.
Oh, but wait now….
And feeding his granddaughter a whole lot of crackpot ideas that are supposed to show that God exists. Life is so complicated! Therefore, God did it!
Well, I guess if you can believe that rot is objective truth, you can believe in an “objective morality” that doesn’t differ in any way from the sort of rule-making and following abilities that social organisms would need to evolve, along with the cheating that arises in such situations.
Just don’t expect WJM’s morality to lead to objective methods to discovering how life evolved, or to objective evidence for objective morality:
I, on the other hand, do not make claims about what reality is; I’m only concerned with useful models.
Seems he’s never squared statements like the one above with “objective morality,” or, well, with anything else he says. It does appear to explain how he operates a whole lot better than the rest of what he says, however.
Glen Davidson
Convincing no one.
Oh, I think it’s an exercise in convincing himself that he’s magnificent and correct. Never fully certain, but with repetition it’ll seem true enough to him.
Glen Davidson
In what might be the shortest stint at Uncommon Descent ever….
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx4m0vhzxbGISDJ2RERyRmthVm8
Lulz.
Right on! You’re perfectly capable of being a moral person without the word moral.
Do dogs understand ‘canine’?
Is Alan a dog?
WJM:
Why must a moral approach be judged entirely upon its warrant for intervention?
Or, accepting that it must arguendo, how is “I think I’ve got the objective standard on my side” a more logical basis?
WJM:
For the pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-pen-penultimate time.
GlenDavidson,
Arguing that objective morality is more rationally sound than subjective morality is not the same as a claim objective morality factually exists, Glen. But such distinctions seem lost on you.
The meaningless distinction is apparent, although you disingenuously pretend otherwise (you’re not exactly profound).
It is a distinction that hardly matters, however.
But that fact seems lost on you, as does consistent thought, open-mindedness, and regard of reality.
Glen Davidson
Why do you use such vague terminology? The rational soundness of a moral system is judged by several things, one of which is how well it can track with actual behavior. We all act (and must act) like moral objectivists (except sociopaths). The idea that one is operating from objective moral values rationally justifies behaving as if one is operating from objective morality, whether it is factually the case or not.
IOW, even if morality is factually nothing more that forcing ones personal, subjective feelings on others, you either admit this or one must assume they are operating from objectively true and universally binding moral values which give you the authority to intervene in the behavior of others and obligate you to do so because of necessary consequences.
It’s one or the other. Either you’re just coercing others to behave as you prefer and rationalizing it by using semantic smoke and mirrors, or you must accept the premise that morality is objective and you are operating by your capacity to, more or less, correctly sense and interpret it, thus granting you an objective criteria and obligation for such interventions. Under objectivism, you’re (presumedly) not simply forcing your personal views on others, you’re enforcing universal oughts because you are obligated to do so or face the consequences.
That it hardly matters to you doesn’t make me disingenuous. What would make me disingenuous is if it hardly mattered to me, and it matters a great deal to me.
William J. Murray,
Same reason you do, I guess. ‘Several things’ indeed.
Except sociopaths and me. And many here. You repeat it continually. I don’t act like objective morality (in your terms) is true. How would you even know? If I go back to a restaurant because I forgot to pay, I consider it a moral obligation – the ‘right thing to do’ – without ever once thinking that this is an objective standard. I think it’s the right thing to do.
That, I submit, is precisely what you are doing.
But again, you’re back to coercion. Your entire argument seems to hinge around warrant for coercion. You sidestepped that, by repeating for the umpteenth time what you think the atheist must accept, without ever justifying coercion as the deciding factor to be considered by any wannabe moral being trying to choose between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ as the most rational basis for morality.
Allan Miller said:
You’re using a stolen concept. “Obligation” under moral subjectivism is just a feeling; you’re not actually “obligated” in any real sense of the word. The correct terminology for a subjectivist would be; “If I personally feel like going back to pay I will; if I don’t feel like it, I won’t.”
When you can characterize your moral behavior in actual subjectivist terms instead of misapplying objectivist terms, then I’ll start to think you might actually be a moral subjectivist. Otherwise, the way you describe your beahavior reveals you to be acting like a moral objectivist.
Except for when I argue about moral obligations and responsibilites, self-evident moral truths vs personal feelings as a basis for a moral system, conscience as a sensory capacity instead of subjective emotions as a means of understanding and interpreting moral goods, and except when I argue about the need for necessary consequences or else morality becomes nothing but sophistry.
There are many reasons why objective natural law morality is logically superior to subjective morality. The intervention aspect is just the one that I think subjectivists have the most problem dealing with.
Instead of complaining that I am making a particular case, you might try responding by telling us what justifies you making a moral intervention, given that you consider morality to be subjective. The problem is, the only answer you logically have is …. because you feel like it. A subjective, personal feeling under any other name (obligation) is still just a subjective, personal feeling.
You see, under moral objectivism, we are actually obligated to intervene in some cases, or else we must suffer the consequences. You see, that’s what an actual obligation is.
You’ve confused ‘popularly shared / subscribed to’ with ‘objective’, William.
William, to Allan:
Um, Allan has already addressed an entire OP to that misconception:
The stolen “Stolen Concept Fallacy” fallacy.
William:
It’s the same for the moral objectivist. He’ll pay if he feels like it; otherwise, he won’t.
For both the subjectivist and the objectivist, whether they feel like paying depends partly on whether they think it’s the moral thing to do. Lacking an “objective morality meter”, the objectivist falls back on his very subjective conscience to make that determination. The subjectivist does the same but acknowledges it honestly.
William simply slaps the label “objective” onto his subjective morality, then congratulates himself for falling for his own bait-and-switch.
Where’s the logical connection there? Nowhere to be seen.
What’s your justification for intervening in some immoral act? That you believe that “some” objective morals exist? That’s no justification, you would need to know what those morals are to the letter. You think there are different “interpretations” of those purported objective, (absolute?) moral rules which is clearly subjective, but also that one is justified in intervening despite of the obvious subjectivity of one’s “interpretations”.
Same old story: pretend that your morals are god given absolutes and push them down other’s throats
But you, Arnold, a self-styled Cartesian skeptic, thinks the situation is different with respect to non-moral judgements. Hmmmm. It seems to me a real Cartesian would say this:
We realists think that we actually DO have “objective reality meters.” In the case of factual truths, it is our perceptual apparatus. In the case of moral judgments, it is our emotions.
walto:
That’s not too far off, actually.
The big difference between moral and factual judgments is that the former funnel down to a single “point of failure” — the conscience — while the latter do not. That doesn’t mean that the latter can’t be wrong, of course, but it does raise the bar for error.
Here’s how I put it to William once:
Of course, even if you do all the things I listed in order to confirm that your monitor is there, you still don’t know (without the asterisk) that it’s there. The Cartesian demon might be fooling you, or you might be an envatted brain.
But at least your judgment depends on multiple sensory channels rather than on a single faculty like the conscience.
The Cartesian demon might fool keiths into thinking that the Cartesian demon is fooling walto when it is keiths who is being fooled.
He said emotions, plural. How do you know that the conscience is a single faculty?
ETA: And what makes you think that multiple sensory channels is better than one, or better than a conscience?
consilience (The same reason science is better than the bible)
William J. Murray,
And so that nail is the one you incessantly pound.
Still, I don’t have a problem dealing with it at all.
Because here (in suitably ‘vague’ terms), are the two competing justifications for intervention:
1) Subjectivist – My morality abhors X and approves Y. As regards others, when I see X I disparage it. When I see Y, I encourage it. If I don’t, there are consequences for me, and for others.
2) Objectivist – The moral arbiter I believe in, I reckon it abhors X and approves Y. Therefore as regards others, when I see X I disparage it. When I see Y, I encourage it. If I don’t, there are …. (cue Also Sprach Zarathustra) Consequences … Yeah, personal consequences for me but still (could you just stick Also Sprach Zarathustra on again?) Consequences
Yes, I’m mocking 2 for funzies. But laying that aside, I don’t see 2 as more ‘logical’ at all. Whatever differences they may possess lie in personal preference – whether personal fear of Ultimate Consequence carries more weight than the personal sense that oneself and one’s society is better off. It’s hardly a question of ‘logic’, unless you use the term as Mr Spock did. Is it more logical to act with a cattle prod up your backside? Well, I guess, Captain …
William simply has no ability to imagine the minds of others. It’s like when FMM insists I believe in god. He knows better then I. And so it is with William.
No, William, you act as you do because you feel like it. And logical conclusions typically follow logical arguments. You’ve yet to make such.
Saying that both the objectivist and the subjectivist will do X if they feel like it assumes the subjectivist position true – that conscience is a “feeling” in the same sense under both premises.
This is a logical argument, not an argument about reality. In order to properly consider the argument, one must be able to examine both premises independent of what one actually considers to be true.
Moral sensations are considered to be two entirely different things under each premise. Under subjectivism, a moral sensation is a “feeling” in the same category as personal, subjective feelings, like loving someone, or preferring one flavor over another, or finding personal fulfillment in doing a particular kind of work or activity. These feelings vary from person to person, culture to culture, etc., and are all considered equally valid as such.
Under objectivism, a moral sensation is not considered that kind of feeling; it is considered to be in the same category as other sensory capacities in that it is acquiring data from an objectively existent aspect of the real world – a moral landscape, so to speak. To characterize the sense of touch, for example, as being “a feeling” in the same category as “a feeling of satisfaction” would be an entirely false equivalence based upon a word (feeling) that has two entirely different meanings from one premise to the other.
So, to draw an equivalence between what a moral sensation is presumed to be under objectivism and what it is presumed to be under subjectivism by saying “under both, you are doing what you feel like doing” is making a categorically false equivalence between what are, under each premise, two very different things.
To separate the two into terms that signify their presumed distinctions, under subjectivism we can use the term “moral emotion”. Under objectivism, we can use the term “moral sight”, which reflects what conscience is presumed to be under that premise – a sensory capacity.
By properly characterizing what moral sensations are presumed to be under each premise, we can more clearly see the problems of moral subjectivism. Under moral subjectivism, moral interventions are (presumedly) based on emotional reactions. Under moral objectivism, interventions (presumedly) are based on a sensory capacity to observe the real moral landscape.
While under subjectivism it would be a categorically valid statement to say a moral intervention was committed ‘because I felt like it”, that statement would be incorrect if moral objectivism was presumed true, just as it would be incorrect to say “I changed course because I felt like it” when you changed course because you saw a cliff in front of you.
Several of you are drawing a false equivalence between two very different concepts by using a term (feeling) as if it properly characterized both concepts. It doesn’t. Until you can separate your belief about what is factually the case about moral sensations from what moral sensations would be if one premise or the other was true, you will be incapable of properly engaging the argument I’m making.
William J. Murray,
Let me stop you right there – no it doesn’t. You completely misread me, and consequently spent far too much effort in attempting to demolish an argument I did not make.
The point, to reiterate, is nothing to do with how one ‘feels’ about a moral position, but about objectivism/subjectivism itself. If one is supposed to logically prefer proposition X over proposition Y, my point was how one feels about that. About that choice. Because you are incapable of expressing the logic in any formal way; your use of ‘logic’ is just puffery.
One is ‘logically compelled’ to prefer the position that assumes that there is some kind of cosmic accounting going on? Is one heck as like.
All that lengthy post appears to say is that an objectivist acts on someone/thing else’s behalf. Even to the extent of getting angry on their behalf. And that makes it logical, Captain.
I think maybe the basic stumbling block is that ‘is’ and ‘ought’, for the theist, come from the same place – Law or Command, according to … preference. So whenever a subjectivist makes any statement about morality, they are perceived as doing the same thing. It seems to render the theist incapable of following the counter-argument.