Society, Morality, and Rape

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Brent, at Uncommon Descent, asked:

Is rape morally wrong because society says so?

Or:

Does society say rape is wrong because morality says so?

 

I answered:

I’m going to annoy you, I’m afraid, Brent, in my answer, but in for a penny…

“Morality” doesn’t “say” anything. People do. Collectively, people form a society, so it is reasonable to say that “society” says something – if that something is the collective mores, or precepts of a society.

So I’d say that people in a society collectively construct a shared system of moral precepts and those precepts include, in most societies, the precept that rape is wrong.

This seems to be fairly universal, probably because most societies develop a system that places a taboo on one person exploiting another for personal benefit. This is not surprising given that we are a social species and do better when we cooperate with each other than when we act individualistically.

So my answer is “closer to that first thing”, because the second doesn’t really make sense.

However, I would phrase it as:

In most societies, rape is regarded as morally wrong, because it violates the principle that underpins the continuation of a society that has potential net benefits for all.

He replied:

Sorry to take the last bit first, but . . .

However, I would phrase it as:

In most societies, rape is regarded as morally wrong, because it violates the principle that underpins the continuation of a society that has potential net benefits for all.

I’m surprised you would say this, not that it is inconsistent with your own beliefs on the matter, but that it leaves you completely open to, and obviously guilty of, WJM’s charges that a Darwinist system (system consistent with “Darwinism”) cannot condemn rape.

And the first bit last . . .

“Morality” doesn’t “say” anything. People do. Collectively, people form a society, so it is reasonable to say that “society” says something – if that something is the collective mores, or precepts of a society.

So I’d say that people in a society collectively construct a shared system of moral precepts and those precepts include, in most societies, the precept that rape is wrong.

This seems to be fairly universal, probably because most societies develop a system that places a taboo on one person exploiting another for personal benefit. This is not surprising given that we are a social species and do better when we cooperate with each other than when we act individualistically.

So my answer is “closer to that first thing”, because the second doesn’t really make sense.

Which all means that my original challenge to your system of morality, in fact, is correct and undermines it completely; there is no actual morality whatsoever.

If people of a society are the source of morality, then people of a society govern morality, and morality doesn’t govern people of a society.

And I invited him to continue the conversation here.

What Brent seems to be saying is that a morality – a system of oughts and ought nots – somehow doesn’t count as “morality” if it is constructed by a socciety of human beings.

My response to Brent is to ask: what morality can he name that is not constructed by a society of human beings?

 

 

416 thoughts on “Society, Morality, and Rape”

  1. The idea that there is an ablosute morality is as cogent and useful as the idea that there is an absolute language.

    And for the same reason.

    Chomsky peddled the idea of a hidden absolute grammar and got nowhere. He had trouble hiding his disdain for evolutionism. His loss, and ours.

    For the same reason that baraminologists fail to find Platonic kinds in biology.

  2. Kantian Naturalist: Hmmm. Well, one of the greatest progressive and socialist thinkers of the 20th century, Martin Luther King Jr., certainly believed in moral absolutes. Would we say that his worldview was “medieval”? If not, why not?

    Martin Luther King was as much a politician as a religious leader attempting to rally traditional conservative religion in the push for racial equality. He had a pretty good handle on what motivated conservative religious folks, both white and black, even though his own personal behavior was somewhat “more liberal.”

    The convergence/divergence business that Mike brings up is good, but I worry that Mike’s way of putting it conflates religious divergence with moral divergence. It seems to me, on the contrary, that there’s been a good deal of moral convergence as well (though not as unequivocal as in the case of science), except for those cases where religious doctrines interfere with moral deliberation.

    I would agree that there apparently seems to be some evidence for that; but I would suggest that it is because of the mitigating effect of the scientific way of seeking objectively verifiable rules. Sectarian zealotry has often been tempered by secular laws since the Enlightenment and the influence of science.

    Furthermore, jurisprudence has adopted pretty much all of the scientific approach toward evidence while retaining some of the tradition of precedent; the latter attempting to preserve what has been worked out satisfactorily in the past. Courts no longer consider testimony based on self-proclaimed religious visions as valid.

  3. That’s an interesting objection, petrushka.

    It’s easy enough to see that there’s no absolutely correct language, but why isn’t there? Presumably it’s because each language is characterized by its own distinct criteria for what counts as an element of its basic ontology, and since we must do ontology in our language (for what else is there?), we have no trans-linguistic access to reality. The absolute conception of the world — “the world’s own language,” so to speak — is one we don’t have any access to, even if the concept of “the world’s own language” makes any sense to begin with (and I follow Goodman, Rorty, and Putnam in thinking that it does not).

    But is the analogy with morality so clear? I find this intuitively attractive but I’m not entirely convinced by it. Maybe you can bring me around.

    Now, I have a nit-picking sort of point to make, and it seems important to me, though it might not be interesting or important to the rest of you. The “kinds” of the baraminologist are not Platonic Ideas but Aristotelian essences, and there’s a subtle difference between the two.

    For the Platonist, the Ideas are at best imperfectly copied by the sensible things, and there is a fundamental separation (chorismos) between the sensible and the intelligible realms. For the Aristotelian, there is no separation; the essences are partly instantiated by the particulars, and only fail to be fully instantiated because of the resistance of material (hyle) to form (morphe). But this separation, chorismos, is exactly what the Platonist needs to keep alive the question, “but is my conception of the sensible particulars adequate to corresponding Ideas?” The Aristotelian just identifies the conception with the essences, and that makes the Aristotelian a dogmatic absolutist, whereas the Platonist is a critical absolutist.

  4. Kantian Naturalist: Put otherwise, what seems to be missing from this discussion is the ‘fighting faith’ of the Enlightenment — that there are absolute moral principles, but that religious doctrines can, and often do, interfere with their pursuit. Conversely, while the insistence on moral absolutes is often made by apologists for one religion or another, we should not thereby conclude that only religionists (of whatever stripe) can or should appeal to absolutes. It could be that there are good reasons to think that there are moral absolutes, while it still being the case that no religion has any privileged access to them.

    There is considerable evidence that certain religious sectarians do in fact interfere with the pursuit of knowledge. In fact, that is precisely what we are seeing in Kansas at the moment.

    As to “absolute set of moral principles,” what possible meaning can these have if the only way we can search for them is the same way we search for understanding of the rules governing nature? How would moral principles be any different from simply discovering how humans best mesh with their environment and cooperate among themselves in order to survive and prosper?

    Despite what some religious people assert, there is no objective evidence for revelation. In fact, various sectarians have conflicting “revelations.” Revelation doesn’t appear to be a workable alternative for discovering “absolute moral principles.”

    And we don’t even know in the long haul if humans will survive as a species. If the fossil record is any indication, most species go extinct. We seem to be making a pretty good mess of our planet at the moment.

    Thus, on the other hand, there may be some good in “divergence.” If a species doesn’t have enough variability to survive huge environmental changes, then extinction is much more likely. I suspect we don’t really know; and won’t know until it is too late.

  5. Aardvark:I don’t need the moral high ground*. I only need a 2×4 and the desire to use it.

    *Well, the high ground is useful when wielding a 2×4.

    hotshoe:And now, just wait, Brent is going to scream at you that your moraity is “might makes right”.

    As if xis vaunted christian morality has ever had any other methods besides violence and torture to enforce their morality on humans.

    Witch burning?Christian morality.Cross-Atlantic slave trade? Christian morality.Hitler’s death camps? Christian morality.Corrective rape of lesbians? Christian morality. Matthew Shephard? Christian morality.

    Honestly, I’d prefer the 2×4 to Brent’s methods.

    Indeed, there is an honesty in people who simply use some form of mass. The ones who obfuscate are the dangerous ones.

    I’m sure you have heard the saying that when totalitarianism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. There is another one that goes, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” I pretty much hold moralists in that same vein. (An unspecified)Morality is the last refuge of a scoundrel and when the American empire finally disintegrates (as all empires do) it will be the moralists who benefit most.

    The reason Murray and Brent keep using the easy tropes of murder, torture, rape is that they are easy. Those subjects are already agreed upon by 99.99% of any neuro-typical audience they are likely to encounter. They avoid listing any concrete do’s or don’t’s and avoid the hard subjects like liberty for gays or marriage equality or abortion because those subjects don’t admit of answers they know we would approve of and they wouldn’t be able to justify.

  6. Brent, is moral for a man to insist that it is the wife’s duty to have sex when he wants it? Or her duty to have children? Is it rape to have sex with a wife who doesn’t want to?

  7. petrushka:
    Brent, is moral for a man to insist that it is the wife’s duty to have sex when he wants it? Or her duty to have children? Is it rape to have sex with a wife who doesn’t want to?

    This was Brent’s answer a few days ago at UD. I think we should take Brent at his word:

    KN, I currently have a sexual slave of 18 years. She’s doing some laundry for the family right now.

    Sounds just like every other christian guy to me.

  8. Brent:

    (…)
    But, if the moral code is based on shifting sand, which also according to your system, it must be, it is not able to safeguard society. The Nazi’s had a system of ethics. It was not good for society. If they kept their ethics within their own society, they may have just killed each other. But part of their ethic was that it was their duty to impose that ethic on other societies. How can a relativist understanding of morality deal with this? It cannot, simple as that.

    I feel like I’m skipping something important here, but can’t think of it . . .

    What you are skipping is that a relativist position does not necessarily entail that we have to condone everything from everybody. We fight Nazi’s not because we deny them their right to believe as they do, but because we deny them the right to act as they do. We don’t need any absolute moral standard to start this fight, all we need is a genuine conviction that they must be stopped.

    Don’t forget that, by your own admission, even absolutists could actually be mistaken about important moral positions. It is quite possible that violent wars are waged between two camps of absolutists, one or both misunderstanding what the absolute morality really says! In this light, any claim of superiority in logic or ‘world view’ by absolutists is simply unfounded.

    You never answered me directly, but I presume you will admit that you, too, could be wrong about the absolute morality, just like the slaveholders of old? Shouldn’t that instill some modesty about telling others if they have a right to judge or not?

    fG

  9. hotshoe: This was Brent’s answer a few days ago at UD. I think we should take Brent at his word:

    Sounds just like every other christian guy to me.

    Well, I’ve been told I can’t call you a liar, so perhaps you’d like to provide the link and let people see for themselves?

  10. fG, it is theoretically possible for anyone to be wrong about anything. It does not follow that, therefore, I am wrong, and especially not in this case, that, when we seriously consider the morality that we encounter in the world seeming to be about rightness and wrongness, it becomes a deductive, necessary truth.

  11. Brent:
    the morality that we encounter in the world seeming to be about rightness and wrongness, it becomes a deductive, necessary truth.

    I don’t see how one can conclude that the application of morality is purely deductive. Even supposing one has an agreed set of moral principles, one has has to decide on what are the morally relevant facts of a situation, which principles apply, how to deal with novel cases not completely completely covered by the principles, how to resolve conflicts between the principles in the situation. None of those processes seem deductive to me.

    And if one assumes that the principles themselves must be developed by some kind of reasoning, which I believe you have agreed to in previous posts, then I don’t see how such reasoning is purely deductive.

  12. Neil Rickert: T

    In mathematics, we consider partially ordered sets.

    Understood, but to me the analogy to relativism would also require one to consider why one partial ordering is better or truer than another.

  13. Kantian Naturalist:

    Put otherwise, what seems to be missing from this discussion is the ‘fighting faith’ of the Enlightenment — that there are absolute moral principles,

    Do we really need to conclude there must be absolute moral principles because of the enlightenment? I thought it was more about relying on reason and science, not dogma (including religious dogma).

    Deciding there must be absolute moral principles does not seem to follow from that. Otherwise why all the moral philosophy since then?

  14. We fight Nazi’s not because we deny them their right to believe as they do, but because we deny them the right to act as they do. We don’t need any absolute moral standard to start this fight, all we need is a genuine conviction that they must be stopped.

    But how can we justify our acting unless we believe what they are doing is wrong for them as well as us? Surely we must have reasons for our “genuine conviction”, reasons that apply to all. That does not mean there is an absolute moral standard, but it does mean we think our moral standards are superior to theirs.

    (Interesting historical aside: would the US ever have fought Nazis if Hitler had not declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor? )

  16. Nations have interests. Most nations ignored the Nazis until their own interests were threatened.

    Same with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the genocide in Rwanda.

    If there is any platonic theme in morality it is that it involves threats to our own interests. Even when it impells us to inhibit our own agression or avarice.

    The interesting question is how the interests of others become our interests. Not a settled question.

  17. Brent:
    fG, it is theoretically possible for anyone to be wrong about anything. It does not follow that, therefore, I am wrong, and especially not in this case, that, when we seriously consider the morality that we encounter in the world seeming to be about rightness and wrongness, it becomes a deductive, necessary truth.

    IOW “it’s obvious”. You just can’t figure it out, can you?

  18. DNA_Jock: Well Brent, you certainly made that statement.

    Thanks for the link.

    Of course I said it. What I didn’t do, however, was to say it in a vacuum. When it is put into the context of the whole discussion, *thinking people, by which I mean to exclude hotshoe and most others, will see what I meant.

    * By “thinking people”, I mean those who can figure out that if A is superior to B, then B cannot be superior to A (In other words, almost no one on TSZ).

  19. As long as there is only one criterion for “superior.”

    Which seldom occurs except in contrived contexts.

  20. Brent: Thanks for the link.

    Of course I said it. What I didn’t do, however, was to say it in a vacuum. When it is put into the context of the whole discussion, *thinking people, by which I mean to exclude hotshoe and most others, will see what I meant.

    The fact that you made that statement is disturbing regardless of the context. Unless, of course, she is into that sort of thing.

    * By “thinking people”, I mean those who can figure out that if A is superior to B, then B cannot be superior to A (In other words, almost no one on TSZ).

    “It’s obvious” is not an argument. Several people have pointed out the flaws in that claim and you have not responded.

    You are a one-trick pony, and it’s a lousy trick.

  21. JonF, normally I wouldn’t respond to you, but you’re just such a nice target right now.

    JonF:

    “It’s obvious” is not an argument. Several people have pointed out the flaws in that claim and you have not responded.

    Au contraire.

    I know this will not register as an argument with you either, but another obvious thing is that you are not very good about reading what has been said in a thread before responding, which means that you look like a fool regularly. I’m sorry for you that my argument (yes, an actual argument) isn’t obvious, because if it isn’t, it means quite literally that you have no hope of thinking at all. The law of non-contradiction has been eradicated in your mind, and everyone on this board not so inflicted (very few, obviously) is paying the price because we have to remember to ignore your posts.

    You are a one-trick pony . . .

    “I know you are, but what am I?”

    But I guess it’s an accomplishment of sorts when a Pee-Wee Herman defense is actually appropriate.

  22. Brent, is a wife obligated to have sex with her husband, even if she doesn’t want to? Can a husband rape his wife?

  23. Brent:
    JonF, normally I wouldn’t respond to you, but you’re just such a nice target right now.

    Au contraire.

    I know this will not register as an argument with you either, but another obvious thing is that you are not very good about reading what has been said in a thread before responding, which means that you look like a fool regularly. I’m sorry for you that my argument (yes, an actual argument) isn’t obvious, because if it isn’t, it means quite literally that you have no hope of thinking at all. The law of non-contradiction has been eradicated in your mind, and everyone on this board not so inflicted (very few, obviously) is paying the price because we have to remember to ignore your posts.

    Let’s review, shall we?
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31512 – answered by an admissionhtat you have no argument for your clai9m.
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31514 – unanswered.
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31632, http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31678 – your answer was (paraphrased) “it’s obvious the Bible doesn’t condone rape”.
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31761 , http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31768 – responded to but avoided th issues raised.
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31879 – respondee to, but ducked the question.
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31886 – ducked the question.
    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3349#comment-31985 – no response.

    Society, Morality, and Rape

    Society, Morality, and Rape

    Society, Morality, and Rape

    Society, Morality, and Rape

    Society, Morality, and Rape

    You are a one-trick-pony

    “I know you are, but what am I?”

    Sheesh, did you graduate kindeergarten? I’ve asked many different questions which you haven’t been able to address and p[pointed out several times where your “argument” is no more than “it’s obvious”. Yes, you are proven to be a one-trick pony and anyone can see for themselves that I’m not.

    But I guess it’s an accomplishment of sorts when a Pee-Wee Herman defense is actually appropriate.

    That’s definitely against the site rules. But you have no more to offer than (obviously sincere) feces-flinging.

  24. Brent:
    fG, it is theoretically possible for anyone to be wrong about anything. It does not follow that, therefore, I am wrong, and especially not in this case, that, when we seriously consider the morality that we encounter in the world seeming to be about rightness and wrongness, it becomes a deductive, necessary truth.

    IOW those guys in olden times were fallible and misinterpreted the absolute moral code, but you are not misinterpreting it because… well, because it’s obvious you’re infallible. Is that about it?

  25. BruceS: I don’t see how one can conclude that the application of morality is purely deductive.Even supposing one has an agreed set of moral principles, one has has to decide on what are the morally relevant facts of a situation, which principles apply, how to deal with novel cases not completely completely covered by the principles, how to resolve conflicts between the principles in the situation.None of those processesseem deductive to me.

    And if one assumes that the principles themselves must be developed by some kind of reasoning, which I believe you have agreed to in previous posts, then I don’t see how such reasoning is purely deductive.

    BruceS, this is my first time replying directly to you, and I have been meaning to get to a couple of your questions. I’m sorry. I think I have actually addressed a couple while responding to others, but I’d like to respond to what looks like a misunderstanding to me.

    What I mean is not that the morals themselves are deductively arrived at, but that since we have such a strong sense of them and they seem to be “about” something, right and wrong, it becomes a deductive exercise to then say they must actually refer to an actual standard measure of what is, indeed, right and wrong. When we say that one person’s or society’s morality is better than another’s, we must necessarily be referring to some standard which is separate from either. So, morality, as we experience it, is about striving toward an ultimate morality, or actual standard of right and wrong.

    No, I don’t believe the principles are developed by reasoning, I believe they exist apart from any human reasoning whatsoever. What may and probably is the case is that we use our reasoning to understand better what those principles “out there” really are and how they should be applied in society.

    Now, I started this thread as a critique of the naturalist view of morality only, to say it is clearly inadequate and doesn’t fully cover morality to the degree that we experience it; i.e., we really believe that some things are just wrong, end of story, don’t-matter-what-nobody-says, period. That is the way we experience morality. If some want to balk, fine; I’ll just point to people going nuts with my rape question to Lizzie, my comment about my wife being my “sex slave”, and other places throughout this very thread. People feel some things are just wrong; flat wrong. If that is the case, the naturalist view is woefully inadequate.

    If the naturalist view is correct, however:

    Vanilla for me, chocolate for you

    Compassion for him, genocide for her

    Love for them, hate for us

    Go ahead everyone else (not you, Bruce), get your panties in a twist on that. It’s because you do believe in an objective morality actually.

  26. petrushka:
    Brent, is a wife obligated to have sex with her husband, even if she doesn’t want to? Can a husband rape his wife?

    Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

    Taking those questions separately, the answers are quite easy and very uninteresting:

    Yes.

    No.

    But I’m sure you really want to keep those questions quite tied together, as if a wife having sex if she doesn’t want to equals being raped, which no person on this planet with the exception probably of most people on TSZ actually believe.

  27. BruceS: I don’t see how one can conclude that the application of morality is purely deductive.Even supposing one has an agreed set of moral principles, one has has to decide on what are the morally relevant facts of a situation, which principles apply, how to deal with novel cases not completely completely covered by the principles, how to resolve conflicts between the principles in the situation.None of those processesseem deductive to me.

    And if one assumes that the principles themselves must be developed by some kind of reasoning, which I believe you have agreed to in previous posts, then I don’t see how such reasoning is purely deductive.

    Oops! I see now that I missed what you were saying about being “deductive”; not the moral principles themselves, but the application. Still, that wasn’t what I was trying to say and I think my last post will have clarified.

  28. faded_Glory: Shouldn’t that instill some modesty about telling others if they have a right to judge or not?

    fG

    I’m not telling anyone they don’t have a right to judge, though. I want you to judge. But, since that is the case, and it is also the case that said judging is inconsistent with a relativist/naturalist understanding of morality, what I do want you to stop is believing something that is obviously false and a bald contradiction.

  29. Brent: Well, I’ve been told I can’t call you a liar, so perhaps you’d like to provide the link and let people see for themselves?

    DNA_Jock: Well Brent, you certainly made that statement.

    Thanks, DNA_Jock.
    Yes, he certain did make that statement. I am not “a liar” – whether Brent calls me one or not – and I did not tell a lie when I quoted Brent saying he has a sex slave.

    Here’s something else Brent said, right here in this thread:

    Until you [hotshoe] can show me that you are not an obvious troll … just realize I’m skipping your posts.

    Hee hee. Brent sure has a funny way of keeping his promise about ‘skipping [my] posts”.

    Unless, maybe, now he’s going to claim that I have shown that I’m “not an obvious troll”? And therefore the condition for him to stop ‘skipping [my] posts” has been met? Ooh, frabjous day, not only am I not “a liar” I am also not “an obvious troll”!

  31. And fG, I didn’t mean that a relativist position of ethics couldn’t be relied upon to oppose the Nazi’s in practice, with guns and guts, but that it cannot deal with saying they were, actually and objectively, wrong, which someone, at least, on this board has unashamedly admitted to believeing; the Nazi’s were not objectively wrong. That’s sad.

  33. Brent: What I mean is not that the morals themselves are deductively arrived at, but that since we have such a strong sense of them and they seem to be “about” something, right and wrong, it becomes a deductive exercise to then say they must actually refer to an actual standard measure of what is, indeed, right and wrong.

    As a mathematician, I would love to see that deduction fully worked out.

    Please. Pretty please with sugar on the top.

  34. Brent: Interestingly, I’m having trouble finding the word “consent” in y
    our original question.

    What part of doesn’t want to fails to imply lack of consent? But didn’t you say a man could not rape his wife?

  35. Three years or so ago I became interested in what atheists had to say, so I watched a bunch of debates on YouTube and did some reading here and there. I was already a Christian, but had avoided getting into these things. But, both because I see massive hypocrisy and stupidity in the churches and stopped bothering to attend many years ago, and because some of the things I did hear that atheists were saying, I thought I had better check it out. Integrity is more important to me than tradition, which sadly I cannot say is an attitude I (almost) ever run into in Christian circles.

    So, to the atheists I listened. And listened and listened and listened. Until I started to find it hard to breathe, I listened. I started to find it hard to breathe, because, there was a massive vacuum in what they said. As quickly as I got straight in my head what one leading atheist was saying, another came along with another argument, but which crushed the first atheist experts argument while he set up his own demolition of Christianity and God. And no sooner than I got that atheist’s argument straight, the next one tore it down while erecting another argument. And on and on it went, until everyone had knocked every one else down. And the dominoes have laid there ever since. It wasn’t the Christian arguments that impressed me (though I think many of them good), but the lack of coherence among the atheistic ones.

    I was astonished to find another who was similarly persuaded, G.K. Chesterton, although he was on “your” side to begin with. But in Orthodoxy, he details nicely the hypocritical and maniacal stance of the atheists. I only note this to say that I’m not the only one so influenced.

    The reason I share this with you is this: I have seriously done with my Christianity what many atheists say I should. I’ve looked with a very critical eye and decided whether and where She was found wanting. I found Her, the Church, very wanting in many ways and many places. But I didn’t find Her wanting for the Truth. This soul searching of the Church by me was begun many, many years ago, and I’ve probably mostly concluded the study.

    What I challenge you to do, atheist, is the same. Don’t listen to the Christians. Listen to the atheists; very, very closely, listen to them. With a critical eye and ear, weigh them. Test them. Begin with reading your own posts here. There is plenty to cause you to clasp your hand over your mouth, and think. Listen to the atheists. Pit them against each other. Let them show you that their demolition of the theistic position is nothing but a demolition of the atheistic one. They will. Listen.

    Who will do this? Who has the guts to really put their world view on the line?

  36. If there is any platonic theme in morality it is that it involves threats to our own interests. Even when it impels us to inhibit our own agression or avarice.

    The interesting question is how the interests of others become our interests. Not a settled question.

    Yes, exactly. The interesting question is how:
    mirror neurons, evolved social primate empathy, and the reinforcement of “don’t hit your brother; you hurt him and that’s not nice. How would you like it if he hurt you like that?”
    expands into:
    Don’t send drone strikes against wedding parties in Yemen. It hurts them and not only that, it’s not good for you, either. At least not in the long run, even if it seems to advance your short-term interests.

    If it were easy, everyone would get the right answer. It may be too hard for anyone to do it right, or consistently. I think some people are trying, though, humanists and secularists leading.

    The religionsts, no surprise, are in general advocating for better aim rather than for no drone strikes.

    No matter which god they think they’re on the side of, there’s always someone on the other side. Someone on the side of the “wrong” god, someone they won’t care if they hurt or kill, even if those others are killed merely because they mis-aim one of their deadly weapons.

    How to get them to expand their own interests to include those others? So that they stop being willing to kill those others in the name of god or flag or custom? I don’t know.

  37. Who will do this? Who has the guts to really put their world view on the line?

    I don’t watch YouTube videos much, and when I do it’s mostly for entertainment.

    I started thinking about religion at age 11 (confirmation class). Basically, religion has never mad any sense to me, at least not organized religion.

    I see the social utility, and as an adult I sang in a choir for more than ten years. So I cannot see myself as a militant atheist, just a non-believer.

    It’s been 55 years since I realized I was a non-believer. In that time I have never ducked hard questions.

  38. Brent:
    when we say “source or creator”, it automatically entails that the creator is not only the author of what the thing ought to be, but also of what it ought to do. So, saying man is the source doesn’t just stop there, it also means that man puts the essence of what the thing is into it, and the intended purpose is also put into it.

    No. Identifying something or someone as a “source or creator” of something else does not, in general, entail that the former is the author of what the latter ought to be or ought to do. Now you might, perhaps, be able to make a case for such an implication if you see the creation process as involving deliberate design. But in the present context (humanity as the originator of moral codes), we’re talking about a more organic process. Morality (in the naturalistic account) emerges from human behaviour; that does not mean that a select individual or committee has consciously built it from the ground up.

    And therefore, at the end of the day, the naturalist’s view reduces to, man ought to do what man wants to do.

    Your caricature here depends on confusion between humanity (collectively) and humans as individuals. We have desires that pertain to the behaviour of others, not only to our own.

    And as I’ve said before, this just doesn’t jive with how morality actually works in the world, and should therefore be seen as an inadequate explanation.

    Of course it’s inadequate. It’s just your strawman, after all.

    Man informs the moral code of what it ought to be, while the moral code informs man what he ought to be.

    Several problems here. First, there is no single “moral code” unless you make absolutist assumptions (which wouldn’t make sense here, given that this is supposed to be a summary of a relativist position). Second, you’re weirdly anthropomorphizing this “moral code” in order to imagine that we can “inform” it. Third, you’re adding a layer of meta: We make the moral codes what they are — but as for what they ought to be, we can only opine as individuals.

    You’re twisting the ideas in order to be able to use the same words in both directions, in order to prop up the analogy with “superiority”. And in doing so, you’ve misrepresented the position that you’re trying to critique. Moreover, even if you do manage to come up with a set of words that accurately describes both the people-to-morality relation and the morality-to-people relation (in a naturalistic account), you’d still have the task of showing that this relation has the property that “superiority” has, of only working in at most one direction. Not all relations are like that: For example, we can easily have “A is a function of B” and “B is a function of A” both being true.

    So you’re still a very long way from showing any sort of “incoherence”. And as JonF has pointed out, declarations like “it’s obvious!” don’t carry any intellectual weight.

  39. petrushka: What part of doesn’t want to fails toimply lackof consent? But didn’t you say a man could not rape his wife?

    Try hard, petrushka.

    Since my earlier analogy was so well understood (and by “well understood”, I mean nobody got it at all), let me give you another chance. See if you can decipher not only the problem with the logic, but further, my point of how stupid you are.

    One guy running:

    I didn’t want to go running today. I went for a run today. Therefore, I didn’t consent to making myself run today.

    Let me know if you need any hints and I’ll see what I can do.

  40. Brent:
    The absolutist position does not mean that there is a rigid “do and don’t do” list. As far as I can tell, absolutists would say there are absolute principles, as I mentioned earlier, like unselfishness. Within that absolute principle, of course there is a lot of leeway for interpretation.

    How much leeway, I wonder?

    Are “interpretations” (of an absolute principle) themselves “right” or “wrong” in an absolute sense? If yes, how is this different from having a rigid “do and don’t do” list? If no, how is this different (in practical terms) from relativism?

  41. Brother Daniel: No.Identifying something or someone as a “source or creator” of something else does not, in general, entail that the former is the author of what the latter ought to be or ought to do.Now you might, perhaps, be able to make a case for such an implication if you see the creation process as involving deliberate design.But in the present context (humanity as the originator of moral codes), we’re talking about a more organic process.Morality (in the naturalistic account) emerges from human behaviour; that does not mean that a select individual or committee has consciously built it from the ground up.

    Your caricature here depends on confusion between humanity (collectively) and humans as individuals.We have desires that pertain to the behaviour of others, not only to our own.

    Of course it’s inadequate.It’s just your strawman, after all.

    Several problems here.First, there is no single “moral code” unless you make absolutist assumptions (which wouldn’t make sense here, given that this is supposed to be a summary of a relativist position).Second, you’re weirdly anthropomorphizing this “moral code” in order to imagine that we can “inform” it.Third, you’re adding a layer of meta:We make the moral codes what they are — but as for what they ought to be, we can only opine as individuals.

    You’re twisting the ideas in order to be able to use the same words in both directions, in order to prop up the analogy with “superiority”.And in doing so, you’ve misrepresented the position that you’re trying to critique.Moreover, even if you do manage to come up with a set of words that accurately describes both the people-to-morality relation and the morality-to-people relation (in a naturalistic account), you’d still have the task of showing that this relation has the property that “superiority” has, of only working in at most one direction.Not all relations are like that:For example, we can easily have “A is a function of B” and “B is a function of A” both being true.

    So you’re still a very long way from showing any sort of “incoherence”.And as JonF has pointed out, declarations like “it’s obvious!” don’t carry any intellectual weight.

    This isn’t very good, but whether I point out why or not, it won’t matter. I do actually appreciate you taking on the challenge directly. I’m done here though.

  42. Brent,

    Silly petrushka. No True(tm) Wife would ever fail to acquiesce to her husband’s demand for sex. Therefore martial rape is impossible.

    Or did you mean something else, Brent?

  43. One more time, Brent, just to make sure I am not too stupid to read a simple English sentence.

    Is it possible for a husband to rape his wife? If I read your post correctly, you said no.

    I’ll leave the other stuff for later.

  44. petrushka:
    Brent, is a wife obligated to have sex with her husband, even if she doesn’t want to? Can a husband rape his wife?

    I was just now fixing this, petrushka. I didn’t take your original question the way you intended it to be taken.

    I thought you meant by “Can a husband rape his wife?”, is it OK for him to do so.

    Obviously then, yes, it is possible for a husband to rape his wife, which would be implied if you knew I meant in my “no” response that it is not OK.

    I apologize for my remark to you. But do grant me, the question was poorly phrased, and I didn’t know what in the world you might be getting at.

    Seriously though, I am done here, except I’ll possibly reply to you further on this point, if you make a good one, since it was at least partially my fault in misunderstanding your question.

  45. Who will do this? Who has the guts to really put their world view on the line?

    You surely don’t. I think I have already done so.

  46. And as JonF has pointed out, declarations like “it’s obvious!” don’t carry any intellectual weight.

    Brent: This isn’t very good, but whether I point out why or not, it won’t matter. I do actually appreciate you taking on the challenge directly. I’m done here though.

    Can’t come up with anything else beyond “it’s obvious”.

  48. Moving beyond the misunderstanding, I’m going to follow up. I assume now that you are saying that a wife does not have to submit, and that marital rape is possible and not morally permissible.

    So I have to ask the same kind of question asked regarding slavery. Why has it taken so long for people to realize this. Marital rape is seldom prosecuted and is not even recognized by nearly half the countries in the world.

    For most of history a woman who refused to have sex with her husband could be beaten bloody (by “could” I mean it was both legal and sanctioned by religion). This started changing within the last few decades.

    Am I correct in assuming you think morality is timeless and placeless? If I am wrong about this I would appreciate an explanation.

  49. From a Catholic perspective, morality in the broadest terms in accessible to anyone. But if you want to know morality with any kind of depth, then it must be acquired via the Church. Thus the absolutism that Brent advocates isn’t suited for running civilizations unless a religious institution exists to teach the people what they “ought” to know. Consequently, attaining objective morality is necessarily constrained, and that means absolutism has very little practical value by itself. It can’t be proven. The Catechism, the Church’s objective morality, simply can not be arrived by any other way than faith – a sacred trust that what the Church teaches is fact, though beyond our mortal reach. Brent, like too many other Christians, seeks to circumvent the requirement of faith.

  50. Brent: Who will do this? Who has the guts to really put their world view on the line?

    I would suggest that this “challenge” is a backhanded way of implying that you think you and your sectarian beliefs are morally superior to everyone else.

    Fundamentalists generally distrust secular learning, and they get pretty much all of their “education” from their pulpits and from gossip within their own circles. Attempting to “justify” your sectarian beliefs on Internet discussion sites will simply invite mockery. You are NOT getting a realistic picture of anything with this approach.

    Trying to find “truth” by going to “discussion” sites on the Internet and arguing with everyone is like looking for healthful, sanitary food in a septic tank.

    A far better approach would be to get a real education in history, the sciences, the arts, literature, and the law; in other words, a good liberal arts education. But perhaps that word “liberal” may be getting in the way.

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