http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/02/maine-teenagers-deny-animal-cruelty-charges-alleging-put-kitten-in-running/
A few months ago we had a discussion of whether non-human animals can be the subject of morality.
Over on UD, Mung opined that animals are meat robots, incapable of suffering.
EDIT: Wrong UD poster. Mapou, not Mung. Apologies.
The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part Two)
Apparently the Bible neglects to mention the possibility that animals can be the subject of morality, or that torturing animals can be a sin. But some IDists have declared that torturing babies is self-evidently wrong.
So is microwaving kittens self-evidently wrong? Or self-evidently okay, because it isn’t forbidden by scripture? What Would William Do? Or Mung? Apparently we have secular laws against this. Why?
I’d like to ask this at UD, but I can’t.
All analogies are limited. I tried to focus on the commonalities.
What I’m arguing is that as social creatures we have an innate capacity to learn the customs of our tribe without being explicitely taught.
Almost right. As it’s the case that there is no objective morality all you have done is fool yourself at another level.
You may feel you have avoided what you call the logically necessary consequence but all you have actually done is insulate yourself from it. It’s still there, you have just convinced yourself it does not apply to you.
If it does not matter that the premise of objective morality is true or can be shown to be true is irrelevant, you’ve demonstrated that you are already insulated from this “objective morality” even if it does exist. If it exists, it does not matter, so it cannot have any further consequence.
Rumraket,
Good post.
Not-getting-it is WJM’s stock-in-trade, unfortunately. The significance of the fact that most people tend to ‘feel’ broadly the same way is lost on him. His asserted experimentation with moral/immoral behaviours can only have ultimate impact through how these various experiments made him feel. Most subjects tend to respond the same way to the same stimulus.
How would you know that, unless I gave you a detailed accounting of my experimental process, inferences and conclusions? This is just an extension of your a priori bias generating self-serving rhetoric without any knowledge about what you’re talking about.
About as well as I can support the assertion that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy don’t exist. The fact that there is no source for moral tenets other than those constructed by people is borne out by the utter lack of any evidence to the contrary. But I can’t search the whole universe over the the duration that people have been around. You, however, if you claim that you get your moral guidance from other than a humanly constructed source, are invited to elaborate on this source.
It appears your stock-in-trade is personality characterizing.
When other people “get it” (mostly Robin on occasion and KN on occasion), I’m happy to let them know it. They’ve even attempted to straighten others out as they continue on with their misunderstandings about my views and arguments.
Note how even after months of reiterating, time after time after time, that my arguments are never about proving something exists but rather only that a concept is logically necessary, others here still engage me as if I’m trying to prove something actually exists, even going so far as to say that if I cannot provide evidence that an objective morality exists, my argument has entirely failed.
Others here are still referring to hell and what the judaic god “says” in their argument as if I have said 100 times I’m not a Christian and I’ve never even read the Bible.
Fair point, William. People should not assume they know what others think when they can so easily ask.
You mean “objective morality needs to exist so I’ll invent it”?
Thank you.
Yeah I’m not too worried about WJM’s chronic imperviousness here. I feel pretty content that an unbiased, rational person coming to this thread and reading our exchange could decide for himself who laid out the most rational and coherent case. I don’t feel the need to keep engagin him, my work is done.
That’s what I thought. It’s just an assumption of yours. You have no way of supporting it. Neither does anyone else.
So, having cleared that up, there are two possible assumptions we can make; that morality refers to a subjective or an objective commodity. As far as I know, there’s no way to know which it refers to; one can only make the best inferences they can, which is why sound use of logic is so important.
If subjective morality logically boils down to a principle that cannot be held as moral (because I feel like it, because I can), then what one is espousing is no longer morality at all, but just personal gratification, rhetorical and emotional manipulation and the coercion of might-makes-right. If you hold that your morality is just subjectively how you would prefer people behave, then you’re nothing but tyrant forcing your subjective, personal preferences on others.
A concept of morality that allows anything and offers no necessary consequences isn’t worth considering.
And here we see the quintessential selfish basis for WJM’s “morality”. It’s not about the moral acts themselvs, to hell with what the moral system is really practically obliging us to do(If it was stoning and rape, then so be it). No, it’s about consequences. If there are no eternal consequences (reward and punishment), it’s just not worth it to WJM. Basically we can count on WJM to “train himself” to do whatever is commanded of him, if we can convince him a deity has commanded it. Then he will do it, because then he will be rewarded, or punished if he doesn’t. That’s apparently what matters.
WJM said: “Would it be correct to say that people can take or leave your three principles in developing their own morality, and that for them, behaving in accordance with whatever their principles may be, is the definition of moral behavior for them? IOW, if under their principles it is moral to mutilate female genitalia or burn witches or murder everyone who disagrees with their views, then it is a fact (inasmuch as there are any moral facts under moral subjectivism), that they are in fact behaving morally?”
Rumraket said: “Sure.”
Rumraket: “There ARE no objective standards.”
Rumraket: “The superiority [of one moral system over another – wjm] does not lie in the “preference”, but in the rules. The underlying standard is the same: we want to avoid suffering and achieve happiness.”
WJM: “What underlying standard is Rumraket referring to?”
Rumraket: “I’ve already told you, the desire not to suffer and to achieve happiness.”
WJM: “What “we” is he/she referring to?”
Rumraket: “All peoples everywhere, ever.”
This is called trying to deny your objective moral standard and have it, too.
From the anti-christian bigot, I’d say you might want to take a step back and reconsider.
Calculated much FSCO/I lately? I don’t think you are using the concept of “logic” in the same way as everybody else.
No, it’s called “look what millions of years of evolution has wrought”.
Most people think that being nice to other people will cause other people to be nice to them. Guess what happened to the people (and their genes) who did not follow this “rule”?
Given that you deny evolution it’s not surprising you are unable to view reality in the light evolution has cast upon it.
Rumraket said:
My argument here isn’t about whether or not any particular act is moral or not, but rather about the logical consequences of the premise of subjective morality.
I never said anything about eternal consequences (except for a person perhaps being able to ultimately destroy their personal identity), only necessary consequences. I don’t believe there are any “eternal rewards”, only necessary ones.
Unfortunately, I must keep my selfish desires in check (at least to some degree) in order to behave morally.
As I’ve already explained before elsewhere on this site, divine command authority has the same rational problem as atheistic subjective moraliity. If god could command a thing to be good, and thus it is good, then that is no different in principle than subjective morality where “anything goes”. Divine command morality is as bad a premise as atheistic subjective morality. Divine command morality isn’t worth obeying even if disobeying in fact leads straight to hell.
There are things I know about morality. So do most atheists. The problem they have is that they try to shoehorn what they know about morality where it cannot fit – moral subjectivism. That’s why they try to deny their moral objectivism and have it, too. After denying there is any objectively true moral standard, Rumraket then asserted one – “anti-suffering and happiness”, and claimed it was true of every person, everywhere. Liz did the same thing by simply re-defining morality to mean her game-theory social preferences, which establishes an objective basis for morality by definition.
To be fair, most theists also attempt to shoehorn what they know about morality where it cannot fit – divine command authority morality. This is why they have to rationalize and apologize for what are clear moral violations by the Christian god in the Bible.
keiths is mucking around trying to insert something more than “mere personal preference” by throwing “principles” into his subjective morality mix, but then so far has failed to explain how he chooses those “deeper” principles other than ultimately by personal preference. llanitedave has offered some sort of core species commodity as an objective basis for morality.
IMO, we all know there is some underlying, objective basis for morality, and that is why we reject that which both moral subjectivism and divine command morality would in some cases validate or condone as moral.
Stoning rape victims and burning heretics at the stake and rounding up dissenters and executing them for their political dissent are all immoral acts regardless of what any god says or is purported to have said and regardless of what any consensus of moral subjectivists “feel” or what their principles are.
Yeah, that’s why everyone is nice to everyone else.
I’ve never denied evolution to my knowledge, and I would never claim to be able to “view reality”.
You are correct. It’s called “evolution”.
And I’ve never been bigoted against christians, to my knowledge. So go figure. But I guess that’s why you hang around UD so much, because you are a big evolution fan.
Oh? Seems I could make the same argument against your “objective morality”.
There we agree.
I can list a few considerations:
Is the behavior I am coercing actually immoral itself? For example, I could snap my fingers and cause all victims of serious crimes to be punished by stoning. I would consider that to be immoral.
I could also cause gay marriage to be banned everywhere it is currently legal. That wouldn’t “solve” any problem as ending stoning of women would, but it still would be particularly onerous on those in same-sex relationships. That would be immoral.
I could even force everyone on this forum to deposit 10 USD in my paypal account. That wouldn’t hurt anyone seriously, but still I would be coercing others purely for my own benefit, which would be immoral.
These are all in contrast with your example of ending stoning of women, and in that case, a great evil could be prevented with very little infringement on people’s liberty.
ETA: I’d like to hear your answer to your question #1.
I contribute 100x as much content here as I do there. In the past 6 months I’ve probably contributed less than 20 posts there. Besides, there are very few people at UD that deny evolution. What they deny is a particular ideological claim about evolution.
WJM @ TSZ:
WJM @ UD:
WJM @ UD
WJM @ UD
Yeah, I think I can hear some cock crowing…Or something along those lines anyway…
What particular claim is that then? And given your quotes above, what particular claim is it you were addressing with those quotes?
So you don’t deny evolution, you just deny it’s possible.
And those were the first few relevant quotes I could be bothered to paste. I’m sure you’ll have your reasons (context, I’m a bigot) as to why none of them address the “I’ve never denied evolution” but I think the onlookers can decide that for themselves.
You’ve listed some examples of when your use of absolute power would be immoral in contrast to the moral elimination of rape victim stoning. You’ve explained why you consider those actions immoral, such as coercing others purely for your own benefit. Let’s call these things principles, and one of your moral principles is to not coerce others purely for your own benefit.
What are your moral principles ultimately derived from? IOW, why “I won’t coerce others for personal benefit” and not the opposite?
I’d end all stoning of rape victims.
OMagain,
Omagain,
You’re confusing “evolution” with “Darwinian evolution”. Intelligently designed evolution is still evolution. What I’ve denied is that the ideological concept of Darwinian evolution – that all biological diversity can be achieved via entirely non-intelligent processes – has ever been demonstrated plausible. It is just ideologically assumed to be the case.
I have no problem with coercing others. It’s what makes law and morality distinct from — say — food preferences. The coercion can be soft, as in approval or disapproval, or it can be guns and police.
It is my desire — a selfish one — to live where coercive measures are arrived at through a process of consensus. Representative democracy currently being the best available effort.
I’m not exactly thrilled with current laws, but I like the fact that they are subject to amendment and experimentation. I particularly like the fact that they are based mostly on utility rather than on idealism. They are acknowledged to be imperfect. And that’s a good thing.
OMagain,
The answer to this question can be found in the quotes you posted:
The ideology I and most UD proponents disagree with is the unproven assumption that natural, Darwinian, non-intelligent causes are sufficient to explain all of biological diversity – as is made clear in the very quotes you’ve posted.
Petrushka said:
Well, there you go.
Thank you for stating your heavily ideologically biased and ill-informed opinion on this matter. It’s all wrong however. Since you simply declared it without argument or evidence, I can just as easily dismiss it as the ill-founded and baseless opinion it is. Thank you.
Where would that be? What system of morality has ever been free of coercion?
Personally I find it a disingenuous canard that Communism is equivalent to atheism. It appears to be a perpetuated ignorance by those who just see Communist regimes as “anti-godly” and “evil”. As such, I reject William’s argument as erroneous – the CPC did “force” any atheistic beliefs on anyone – the Chinese populace in particular. Simply put, they uphold a political/economic conceptual practice, not an atheistic principle. William’s argument is erroneous because it is an inaccurate equivocation.
I would not argue overly against this characterization of my view of morality, however I will note that your morality boils down to the same thing William.
And what is your conscience other than subjective feelings? My subjective feelings are “tested” through interaction with my mental moral landscape too. The difference, as far as there is one, is your subjective opinion that your mental moral landscape is objective, but as you freely admit, you only hold this true because you feel it must be so for your moral system to be rationally justified. You’ve freely admitted that you don’t actually know that your moral landscape is actually objective.
The Chinese are totalitarian, but no more so than any of a number of religious governments, and not remarkably more so than traditional Chinese governments. They have long been bureaucratic and authoritarian.
The demarcation should be between libertarian and authoritarian, rather than between theist and atheist. There are lots of dimensions involved.
Thanks, Robin. That makes complete sense to me. No matter how many times it is put to him, William seems to stoically overlook this simple point.
Exactly! The demonisation of atheists as some sort of threat to civilization is a fairly obvious ploy by fundamentalists to try and keep the lid on the inexorable drift away from organised religion in the Western World.
I have no problem with religious people, their various faiths and practices (to the extent that it does no real harm to the vulnerable – genital mutilation of young girls, for example). It’s the goal of fundamentalists to enforce their views on others that must be highlighted and resisted. Islam seems to be a contributory factor to some desperate situations. The civil strife in Nigeria, Syria, Afghanistan etc.
Not so fast. I am asserting nobody has based any moral framework on anything other than human invention. Let me make a weaker point. William J Murray hasn’t based his alleged moral framework on anything other than his own or plagiarized human invention.
The simple way to refute me is to demonstrate this other source of morality, if you claim you have one.
William,
By consulting my conscience. As anyone with a conscience can tell you, the answers it gives aren’t always in line with mere personal preference or whatever one happens to feel like doing.
Is conscience subjective? Absolutely! That’s why morality is subjective, including your supposedly objective version of it.
I never claimed such, nor implied it.
I never claimed they did. However, if “forcing one’s atheistic beliefs on others” can be taken to mean “forcing others to live by atheistic beliefs”, systematic oppression of religious practices and speech comes pretty close.
No, your rebuttal is without merit because I never made or implied such an equivocation. Alan Fox claimed that no atheists want to force their moral views on others. The fact is, the CPC are all atheists, and they force their moral views on about 21% of the world’s population. Whether or not their moral views are derived from atheism is entirely irrelevant to that fact.
” CPC are all atheists” unlikely.
Then support that assertion.
First, this is called shifting the burden. It’s not my job to refute bald assertions you have not yet even supported other than to simply make the assertion.
Second, I’ve never claimed (to my knowledge) to have an objective source of morality. What I’ve claimed is that I must assume morality comes from an objective source for various logical and practical reasons. I have then outlined various aspects of how that assumed objective morality would exist, be sensed and extrapolated from, and how it would satisfy the moral relativism and command morality problems.
The fact is that China is a secular state that guarantees some freedom of religion. Other states differ in their practices. Today, in Pakistan, “blasphemy” is an offence punishable by death.
keiths said:
Unless your conscience is something other than personal, subjective feelings, then your moral principles are selected by your personal, subjective feelings, and so your moral principles cannot be said to be “deeper” than that which selects them.
Entirely irrelevant to the point.
Call it what you like! 🙂 If you can’t support your claim that you have some other way of getting your moral framework than by just inventing it yourself or borrowing from another human source, then fine, I am satisfied with that.
How does that not apply to William J Murray? The description fits like a glove as far as I can see! 🙂
That depends on what you mean by your terms. If you mean a moral system that is not arbitrarily implemented nor dependent upon any sentient, willful being to enforce it, then my moral system is free from coercion.
If you equivocate something like gravity to be coercive in nature, then none.
It is not irrelevant to the fact William; it’s the basis of your entire opinion. Unless you can establish some actual inheritance between their moral views/Communistic structure and atheism, you have not made a rebuttal to Alan’s point. You’ve merely made the claim that Communistic Dictatorships force their political/economic principles on the populace. Big whoop…
But possible. How could we find out? This article seems to support William’s claim that religious activity is not to be tolerated among party members, though it also suggests that a growing religiosity within the membership is of concern to the ruling elite.