is on a debate tour of Britain. Apparently Polly Toynbee pulled out of debating him. I heard on Uncommon Descent that a replacement had been found. (I’d emailed WLC to volunteer myself! – but I guess it has to be Somebody.)
I’m starting this thread to house any comments about the tour and the debate.
BTW, IMO it is indefensible and unarguably cowardly that Dawkins refuses to debate a significant representative of that worldview which he repeatedly and for financial gain disparages and condemns.
Murray:
I fail to see how your comment relates to the quote you provided.
If you’re talking to me, I made no comment. The quote from Wikipedia defines consequentialism, which I take to be the stance about morals that you took when you said, No “moral code” is objective; the purpose it describes or is trying to achieve is what is objective.
To put it plainly, your stance is consequentialist.
No, I’m not a consequentialist. The actual consequences of one’s actions under theistic morality are largely irrelevant as long as one is intentionally acting in service of the good.
Murray:
No, I’m not a consequentialist. The actual consequences of one’s actions under theistic morality are largely irrelevant as long as one is intentionally acting in service of the good.
Therefore, the slaughter of the Canaanites was good, because the Israelites thought it was good. And when the Canaanites practiced human sacrifice in honor of their gods, that was good, because they thought it was good. Two tribes, two theisms.
How does a theist objectively decide which tribe’s notion of good is the correct one?
Things are not “good” simply because one “thinks” they are good. Perhaps you missed the part about “the good” being an objective commodity. Your intentions are either in service of the good, or they are not. Intending to “do good” doesn’t by itself make the intention good because “the good” is not a subjective commodity.
IOW, I may believe it is a good thing to do whatever I want for my own personal pleasure, and intending to serve that subjective good I might intend to torture some infants; that intention doesn’t serve the actual, objective good. It is an immoral intention, regardless of how I organize or justify it in my mind.
Nobody objectively decides anything. What people can do is attempt to subjectively determine what serves the premised objective good; but first, you have to agree that an objective good is a necessary assumption for any meaningful moral system.
If we are going to premise that all “goods” are subjective, then there’s no reason to even bother with the attempt to justify behavior via a morality.
I don’t understand this sentence.
If I “intend to do good”, then my “intention” was “good” , regardless of the meaning we give the term “good”.
Try replacing the word “good” in the above sentence with the following:
……. evil …
William J Murray,
Here is the proper context.
You were replying to my statement about subjective theology.
You claimed we were all subject to the “same moral rules”.
A **rule** is an “ought”, a directive to behave in a specific manner.
If our “common purpose” is to “be fruitful and multiply”, and I decide that it is my “purpose” that decides my behaviour, then “thou shall not commit adultery” is not something that applies to me.
Clearly, the more women I sleep with, the more likely I am to have a lot of children.
You should run this thought by kairosfocus and StephenB and see their take on it.
I’d be interested in seeing how close they are to your views.
The meaning is made clear in my example. If ones intent is a generic “to do good” while defining in one’s mind “good” as “whaever pleases me”, and so the intent to torture infants is equitable with his/her intent “to do good”, under a theistic morality that person’s intent “to do good” is not good in and of itself – it is evil, not good, because their intention describes an objective evil, even if in their mind they think it is good.
Calling and believing an evil “good” doesn’t make it good, and doesn’t make one’s intention good, just as calling an orange a mammal doesn’t make it so.
Toronto:
I’ve repeatedly (on this site) explained my position on morality and good.
Morality either describes an objective good, or it describes a subjective good. If it describes a subjective good, there’s really no point in worrying about it.
If we accept that it describes an objective good, then the first thing we do is identify self-evidently true moral statements, and from there infer necessarily and probably true moral statements, and from there logically determine conditionally true moral statements, and live our lives accordingly.
I don’t consider “be fruitful and multiple” a self-evidently true moral statement.
OK then, explain in your own words the use that Craig makes, in his apologetic for genocide, of his belief that many of the victims must have ended up happier as a result of being murdered.
Can you support this opinion?
William J Murray,
Rubbish!
Why is Dawkins obliged to debate any deranged wingnut? If Craig has a strong argument, then just broadcast it widely. If it can be refuted, it will be. By the way, in my opinion, Stephen Law made mincemeat of Craig. Oh, and…
Assuming for the sake of argument we accept that Craig’s point about the uncaused first cause is irrefutable proof of a creator, how in ***’s name do we end up via the non sequitur/leap of faith in to the biblically innerant baby-killer Yahweh rather than any one of a gazillion gods?
It isn’t.
What I was showing was a demonstration of the result of assuming “common purpose”.
******** IF ********
…… our “common purpose”………
was to “be fruitful and multiply”,
******* THEN *************
the “moral statement”,
……………. “Thou shall not commit adultery”,………………….
…..doesn’t apply.
I’ve done what you like to see; logic.
The assertion, “be fruitful and multiply”, need not be “valid”.
William J Murray,
If I “intend to paint the fence”, then my “intention” is “to paint the fence”.
What colour I’m aiming for,
…whether I like the colour,
…whether I chose the colour myself,
…whether the clour offends anyone,
…is completely beside the point,
…since my intention was to paint the fence.
I don’t understand the question. Of course they are going to end up happier (if Christian theology is true), being as they supposedly end up in heaven.
But even given it would be fact that they would be happier being dead doesn’t render the act of killing them moral or legal, because the guideline of “what is moral” and “what is legal” is not limited to “what makes someone happy.”
I didn’t say he was obliged to debate any deranged wingnut.
He is IMO obligated by honor and courtesy to face those in the court of open debate who represent opinions and beliefs he has attacked, ridiculed, and disparaged for personal profit and fame, or else IMO others are justified in their view that he is a dishonorable coward.
There are only a relatively few gods that are even proposed to be the foundation of existence itself (uncaused cause, first cause); out of that handful, only the Christian god is described as inherently bound by reason and the inherent source of good, with the possible exception of some views of the Jewish god (and they’re supposedly the same god).
In any event, I wouldn’t personally try to make the case that the specific “god of the Bible” is an accurate description of any acts or qualities of god beyond those which are fundamentally necessary for rational theism – first/sufficient cause, source of good and source of reason/logic.
The children may not have a right to “be happy”, but they do have a right in the eyes of most Christian groups to be alive.
It is the children’s “right to life” that has been taken from them by the soldiers.
If unborn children have a “right to life” as claimed by many Christian groups, then children that have already been born, have that right too.
No Christian backing Craig’s statement in support of killing children can also **not** support the right of women to an abortion, since in the eyes of Craig, the chldren’s rights are a secondary issue to someone’s ultimate purpose.
William J Murray,
What is disturbing is that most atheists that I have seen on UD and on this site, would argue that heeding an order from a leader to kill innocent children is wrong, while theists, like Craig, are actually arguing the opposite.
Secondly, why would a god that could somehow flood the whole world, yet selectively be able to turn a single person located somewhere on the face of the planet to salt, need anyone’s help to mete out justice?
The true god needs not be one that has been proposed by anyone.
You also have never shown, …. a reason….., why multiple gods cannot exist.
You also, for some reason, cannot accept multiple gods even if all those gods but yours, are benign and therefore don’t impact on your universe.
William J Murray,
The plain fact is debates are utterly unsuited to sensible exchanges of view. The written media are much more appropriate. Dawkins has made a huge contribution o the popular understanding of biology. He doesn’t need to waste his time on a stage with Craig. Nobody who isn’t already disposed to Christian evangelicism is remotely persuaded by Craig’s arguments so what would be the point. If huge swathes of people were being converted to fundamentalist Christianity by Craig, maybe there would be some motivation but that is not happening. I’m not going to address your “dishonourable cowardice” remark; it’s too laughable.
Well, there you go. Pick your own!
That’s because I’ve never claimed that multiple gods cannot exist, only that specifically exclusionary “multiple gods” cannot by definition exist.
As usual, your summary of my position is incorrect. Being a free will agent, I can accept whatever view I wish, including those which are logically absurd.
I’m not that familiar with christian theology or apologetics, and I have no desire or capacity to defend it to any meaningful degree.
I’m just pointing out the logical and non-logical inferences and conclusions being presented.
If “your” god told you to kill innocent children, would you?
My god doesn’t tell me to do anything.
As a theist, how do you relate to your god?
Are you and your god conscious of each other?
Murray:
Things are not “good” simply because one “thinks” they are good. Perhaps you missed the part about “the good” being an objective commodity.
No, I didn’t miss that claim. I’m willing to grant for the sake of discussion that “the good” is an objective commodity. In that light, my question remains: what is your procedure for identifying that commodity? How, for example, did you determine which, the Canaanites or the Israelites, pursued the objective good?
Wiliam J Murray,
This is a great question and very pertinent to this thread on William Lane Craig.
It’s also a great case for you to show that an objective good exists and how to properly identify it.
I think that any answer I could give you in this space would probably only serve to generate misunderstanding. There isn’t anything I do that is not relating to god, one way or another. As I am an aspect of god, and I am conscious of myself, then can we say god and I are conscious of each other? I don’t know how to answer that. In some ways I suppose it is fair to say both yes and no. God as a whole is probably not conscious of me specifically, any more than I am conscious of any particular cell in my body, but at the local level, god certainly responds to my activity. Everything I do generates consequence and local attention within the body of god, since god is the grounding of all existence.
I don’t know anything about the canaanites or the israelites, As I’ve said before, I’ve never read the bible. My point about objective good and subjective morality was a general one – that there are self-evidently true moral statements, inferred and necessarily true moral statements, and conditionally true moral statements.
One starts with self-evidently true moral statements, infer from those necessarily true moral statements, probably true moral statements, and then conditionally true moral statements. One can then develop a general theory of morality, such as the golden rule or the categorical imperative.
Overall, I like that answer.
If there was a singular conscious god, I think he would be closer to the way you describe him than the god of the Christian bible.
How?
What is obviously clearly self-evident to me, may not be evident to you or someone else.
If we now are discussing moral statements, because we have each started from a different “self-evident” view of what is moral, there is no hope that we’ll end up with the same version of an objective good.
If the barbarians at the gate find peasants impaled live on stakes, and then decide not to take a chance on killing everyone in the kingdom, what is the self-evident conclusion?
Did you murder 100 innocent peasants or save 10,000?
Both statements may be true.
Things have to be taken in context as you have mentioned, so there is nothing than can be self-evidently moral that a different point-of-view can’t argue against.
Once again, our boy boy WJM makes noise about “self-evidently true moral statements”. Alas, he never has explained how one determines which of two conflicting “self-evidently true moral statements” actually is true, and which is false (see also: abortion, slavery, etc).
It doesn’t matter if someone can argue against a self-evidently true moral statement or not, we most operate as if there are self-evidently true moral statements, and proceed forward from there. If we cannot agree on a self-evidently true moral statement, then we can progress no further in fleshing out a meaningful moral system – at least not one we agree on.
I begin with “it is always wrong (immoral) to torture infants for pleasure”. If the other person cannot agree to that, then there really is no use in my trying to go further with such a person. They might as well be denying basic principles of gravity. Some statements about morality are as self-evidently true as some statements about gravity; and because someone might argue otherwise doesn’t mean they might be right; it means there is something wrong with them.
You don’t “determine” which moral statements are self-evidently true; that’s what “self-evidently true” means – no “determination” is necessary. They are self-evidently true.
Are you going to argue that the statement “it is always wrong to torture infants for personal pleasure” is not a self-evidently true moral statement?
1) You fall down and hurt yourself.
2) You remember you don’t like the feeling of pain.
3) You watch someone else get hurt and react to pain in the same way.
4) Now you only have to hear that someone got hurt and you wince because you know what they are experiencing.
Your statement doesn’t have a moral basis, it has a “Golden Rule” basis.
The morality part comes in when it becomes a part of an expected code of conduct.
Our experiences in life give rise to the concept of “acceptable behaviour”.
Morality in societies could not exist without the subjective input of individuals.
It is that subjectivity that you and most theists have trouble with.
The thought that we could on our own come up with acceptable rules of conduct means that theologies are not necessary.
So here’s the question;
….what is the point of being a theist if theism is not necessary for morality?
You can’t logically discern golden rule (which is a general theory of moral behavior) without first finding self-evidently true moral statements, just as you can’t get to a general theory of gravity without first finding self-evidently true statements about gravity.
I don’t have any trouble with it at all; I understand exactly the limitations of subjectivism. It either must be grounded in the assumption of an objective reality and objective standards, or it degrades into nothing more than anarchistic solipsism.
Murray:
Are you going to argue that the statement “it is always wrong to torture infants for personal pleasure” is not a self-evidently true moral statement?
There’s no argument. That particular moral claim is not self-evident to me. Like Toronto, I learned my morals from experience, and my revulsion about inflicting gratuitous suffering upon other creatures (including infants) is the product of that life experience.
The same is true for William Murray, but he has apparently forgotten how he learned his morality.
Murray:
You can’t logically discern golden rule (which is a general theory of moral behavior) without first finding self-evidently true moral statements, just as you can’t get to a general theory of gravity without first finding self-evidently true statements about gravity.
Please provide those self-evidently true statements about morality and gravity.
The “Golden Rule” doesn’t deal with “oughts”, it deals with “won’ts”.
In other words, ” I won’t do this to you because I don’t want you to feel what I did”.
A moral statement is an “ought” originating from outside the self, while a “Golden Rule” statement originates from the self and is directed outwards.
There is a huge difference between the two.
An Israeli soldier told to kill innocent Canaanite children might actually be acting morally if that is considered “acceptable” by the group, but it is “self-evidently” true to me, that sort of behaviour is **not** “acceptable”.
So, do we listen to god or do we say no to him in this case.
I would say no, …what about you?
There is no argument to be had with moral solipsists.
Well, if we get to conveniently characterize and paraphrase “the golden rule”, here’s my convenient characterization:
“The Golden Rule describes what are supposed to be either self-evidently true moral statements, or necessarily true moral statements.”
and my convenient paraphraasing:
In other words, “Behave like this because you already know you should, whether it feels good or not, and whether you want to or not, and whether you have any empathy for others or not.”
Now, don’t hold me to that. I’m just having some fun with convenient characterizations and paraphrasing 🙂
I guess I should know better than to get involved in debates with solipsists !!!
William J Murray,
A moral statement is an “ought” originating from outside the self, while a “Golden Rule” statement originates from the self and is directed outwards.
Agreed or not?
Murray:
There is no argument to be had with moral solipsists.
Define “moral solipsist.”
And once again, WJM provides no way to discern whether or not a putative “self-evidently true moral statement” actually is true. Apparently, WJM feels that if one has slapped a ‘Self-Evidently True’ label on it, that’s all the discernment one needs. Perhaps WJM might want to ponder a situation in which John Doe believes that X is a “self-evidently true moral statement” while Richard Roe rejects the notion that X is a “self-evidently true moral statement”. Or perhaps WJM prefers continuing to avoid this question, which strikes at the heart of his argument.
It is hard to find words strong enough to express the revulsion that (nearly) anyone will feel at the prospect of someone torturing an infant for pleasure. (Those who don’t feel such revulsion indeed “have something wrong with them”, to use WJM’s words.) I can sympathize with the impulse to resort to the language of “self-evident objective truths” as a way of expressing that revulsion, but I would question the appropriateness of it. In this thread we see WJM using the willingness to use such terminology as a test of piety, as it were; or more precisely as a benchmark for whether one feels the acceptable level of revulsion toward the horrible scenario in question. I believe this measurement technique is flawed.
We also see the (entirely unsupported) assertion that a subjectivist view of morality “degrades into nothing more than anarchistic solipsism”. Ironically, the example of torturing infants for pleasure actually provides an argument for the contrary view: The near-universal subjective response to such a horrible scenario is precisely the emotional springboard that can (and often does) lead to people agreeing with the claim about the allegedly “self-evident objective truth”. The fact that such examples can be raised is powerful evidence that subjective morality functions, in practice, much like supposedly “objective” morality, without any of the “degrading” that WJM claims.
The apparent strength of WJM’s argument derives from its emotional impact, and that dependence demonstrates the practical effectiveness of human convention as a basis for morality. This objectivist argument is self-defeating, for no adequate example would be available to the objectivist to use in such an argument if it were not possible to account for morality in a subjectivist way.
Even though gravity – and all of physics – is described via subjective, empirical experience, it is assumed that gravity is an objectively existent phenomena, and treated accordingly.
If what morality describes is not an objectively existent phenomena (with inescapable consequences for behavior), then I have no reason to acquiesce to my empathetic emotions when it comes to behavior; I am free to desensitize myself and act however I wish, with any degree of cruelty or self-serving cunning. If there is no penalty other than whatever happens if I get caught, then all I need do is not get caught – or not do anything illegal, in any event.
Furthermore, since Brother Daniel argues that it is only individual, subjective emotional, empathetic sensations that denote immorality, then simply desensitizing myself to those feelings render all tings by definition moral.
What Brother Daniels argues is if one isn’t physically revulsed by the idea of sneaking into a teacher’s office and changing their grade, then it is by definition moral; and if one is a sociopath, or simply culturally desensitized to the act, then torturing children for fund can be as moral an act as donating money and time to charitable causes.
Under Brother Daniel’s system, if Joe beats up an old lady and steals her social security money, then it is immoral because (and only because) Joe feels bad about it; but if Jack does the same thing and doesn’t feel bad about it, then it is not immoral.
That is the nonsense that is morality under the subjectivist perspective. It doesn’t “revulse” me one whit to think about all sorts of activities that I know are morally wrong; I don’t need empathetic reactions to know right from wrong, and it doesn’t matter if a sociopath has empathetic feelings or not, if they torture infants for pleasure or sneak in and change a grade, they are still committing an immoral act.
I think what Brother Daniel is actually showing is that your claim of being able to find “self-evidently true moral statements” can’t be done with your emotional examples such as “torturing babies”.
What you are really getting is the subjective opinion of a large group of people who are “each” repulsed by the idea of torturing babies.
You simply have a consensus of subjective opinions.
If you want to arrive at a “self-evident statement” you have to use something without the emotional component.
Show us an example without emotion.
Murray:
If what morality describes is not an objectively existent phenomena (with inescapable consequences for behavior), then I have no reason to acquiesce to my empathetic emotions when it comes to behavior…
—–
It doesn’t “revulse” me one whit to think about all sorts of activities that I know are morally wrong
How about male homosexual anal sex? Is that objectively immoral? Self-evidently moral? What?
It’s certainly not self-evidently immoral. I doubt one could make a rational case that, in and of itself, it’s even conditionally immoral.
That’s a good example of where subjectivist morality fails; if a people have their sensibilities offended by some behavior, does that in and of itself make it immoral? Of course not. Is something “immoral” just because I feel bad for someone empathetially? If I feel bad for a contestant on a singing competition that they got booted off, or if I feel bad because a parent gives their child a time out or swats their behind, or won’t let them drink soda, does that make those actions “immoral”?
Of course not. “Feelings” are not a rational basis for morality OR a theory gravity. But, unless we move on to a rational system based upon presumed objective standards, that’s all we are left with, and thus minority views have no power to persuade.
If all the minority can argue is “feelings”, the then greater number of “feelings’ by the majority wins. Right?
Not.