Problems with Atheism

@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

Of course not. There can be truth in any arena where there is an objective way to decide between two competing ideas. There can be truth in mathematics because mathematics has a clear way to test ideas.

Is that the only area where we may find truth? For instance, if X says "Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth and died in 1865" and Y says "Abraham Lincoln died in his home in Springfield of pneumonia in 1882," would you be willing to say that X's statement is true and Y's statement is false? What about if X says "the best way to treat a headache is with aspirin" while Y says "the best way to treat a headache is by sticking pins in a voodoo doll." Would you be willing to say that Y's statement is false?

ebrown p wrote:

There is no objective way to test between two competing ideas of morality. Each person judges based on their culture... but there is no way that is not based on your subjective point of view to prove anything about morality.

That's just more question begging. You claim that morality is nothing but subjectivity, and then, on that basis, claim that there can be no objective morality. But you're simply presupposing your conclusion on the basis of your assumptions. That doesn't prove anything. What you haven't done is provide any basis for your assumptions.

ebrown p wrote:

I am saying there is no ultimate arbiter of morality. Morality is a function of culture.

Then you agree that morality is nothing more than custom, right?

ebrown p wrote:

Do you have something else to propose that would objectively define what is right or wrong outside of a specific cultural context?

I'm still trying to figure out if you believe in morality at all. Clearly, if you don't, then there's really no reason to have a discussion about morality with you.

1 Reply

@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

I am saying there is no ultimate arbiter of morality.

How is that a difference between the "is" world and the "ought" world? There's no ultimate arbiter of physics, mathematics, biology, and sociology either.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Joe,

Morality is clearly a human trait-- almost every human has a sense of morality, the same as almost every every human has a language and a sense of caring for their kids. I have never said that "morality" isn't real.

I am challenging the idea of "absolute morality". My belief is that the same way that, although every human culture has language, the specifics of that language vary from culture to culture. There is no better language or worse language-- even though each person has their own view of language and sees the other languages as foreign.

My claim is that our ideas about morality are specific to our culture (and our upbringing).

The problem is when two different cultures disagree about what is moral or immoral, there is no way to judge between them-- you are always going to make a judgement based on your cultural understanding which is not better then the other persons cultural understanding outside of your culture.

So my thesis is that there is no absolute morality. My main argument is that there is nothing in the Universe (other then our subjective opinions based on our culture and upbringing) on which to base such an absolute morality.

You could very disprove this by offering up a way to judge two different ideas about morality in a way that didn't depend on the assumption of the unprovable assertions of one culture.

You could very easily disprove this if you could offer an objective, non-culture specific way to judge between two differing views on morality.

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@Thomas,

Thomas.

Mathematical proof.

Scientific experiment.

Moral ______________ ?

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

You could very disprove this by offering up a way to judge two different ideas about morality in a way that didn't depend on the assumption of the unprovable assertions of one culture.

You could very easily disprove this if you could offer an objective, non-culture specific way to judge between two differing views on morality.

Or I could prove it by simply demonstrating that the alternative -- i.e. moral relativism -- is invalid. Either there is such a thing as morality, in which case it must, in some fashion, be absolute, or else there is no such thing as morality, in which case there's no reason to bother. What is not possible, however, is that there is such a thing as morality which is not absolute in some fashion.

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

Thomas.

Mathematical proof.

Scientific experiment.

Moral ______________ ?

I reject the premise of your question. No scientific experiment has ever been the final arbiter of whether a scientific hypothesis was true.

Turning from science to mathematics -- even mathematical proofs are just shorthand for "an axiom, or formal argument derived from axioms through logical deduction, that has persuaded every mathematician who looked at it." Moral statements can be provable in this sense: The statement "Killing humans for no reason at all is morally wrong" is "true" in the sense that everyone with a functioning conscience agrees with it.

Every objection you raise against the existence of any moral facts can in principle be raised against the existence of any facts.

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ebrown p, I think an alternative way to phrase joefromchicago's challenge to your moral relativism is to ask: Why are you not a nihilist? What makes you think there's any morality at all? Why don you think moral convictions are entirely unfounded and a complete waste of time? I don't think joefromchicago would have any objection left if that was your view.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

The statement "Killing humans for no reason at all is morally wrong" is "true" in the sense that everyone with a functioning conscience agrees with it.

Which is to say that a functioning conscience is one which agrees with the statement. That seems meaningless to me.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Every objection you raise against the existence of any moral facts can in principle be raised against the existence of any facts.

I don't know Thomas, I would say that scientific facts exist outside of human experience (although I suppose this could be debated).

Do you believe there are moral facts that exist outside of the human mind?

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@Thomas,

Morality is like language. Human beings clearly evolved with an ability to have moral beliefs-- just as human beings evolved with an ability to learn a language. Language and the tendency to hold to some moral code are both important parts of being a social animal.

Yet human beings have developed pretty different ideas of what that moral code is-- humans disagree about rights, and when killing is acceptable and relationships and all sorts of things.

So yes, "morality" is a real phenomenon just like "language" is a real phenomenon.

When faced with the decision of whether that slobbering four legged creature is a "dog", "chien" or "perro"-- each of these are equally correct in any objective way.

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

I don't know Thomas, I would say that scientific facts exist outside of human experience (although I suppose this could be debated).

Not only could it be, it is. A large and influential school of philosophers and psychologists disagrees with it. They hold that everything we treat as facts is merely a bunch of constructions by our brains. These constructions are useful for us, as are the truth values we assign to them and the logic through which connect them. But the philosophical concept of truth itself is treated as dubious and unnecessary. For more information about this school of thought, search the web for "constructionism".

ebrown p wrote:

Do you believe there are moral facts that exist outside of the human mind?

That depends on your view of what constitutes a fact. Depending on your definition, I could either be a constructionist about both morals and science or an "objectivist" about both. (Note the small letter 'o' in "objectivist" -- I want nothing to do with Ayn Rand and her cult.) I have no philosophical problem with constructionism. We can reduce the concept of "facts" from something philosophically relevant to a mere labor-saving device for our minds. But if there are facts about history, or natural science, or math, then there are facts about morality too. Either way, the statement that "it's righteous to rape babies merely for the fun of it" is false in the same sense as the statement that "two plus two equals five".

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

Morality is like language.

... and I'm quite prepared to argue that when your teacher marked certain features of your spelling and grammar as "mistakes", she was really just enforcing the prejudices of society through the tyrannical powers vested in her by the school. OmSigDAVID is quite justified in resisting such tyranny through the way he writes his posts.

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@Thomas,

I've lost track as to what this has to do with atheism, but I reiterate a point I made above about social systems...namely that like "religion", both "language" and "morality" as aspects of social interaction in which participants conform or otherwise according to their perceived personal needs. Thus conscious language "mistakes" or behavioural "transgressions" with respect to prevailing "moral codes" are meaningful only with respect to a changing flux of psychological and social factors. In that sense they are both "relative" as opposed to "absolute", even if (in the Chomskyian sense) all languages and all moral codes have respectively some underlying universal aspects.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

... and I'm quite prepared to argue that when your teacher marked certain features of your spelling and grammar as "mistakes", she was really just enforcing the prejudices of society through the tyrannical powers vested in her by the school. OmSigDAVID is quite justified in resisting such tyranny through the way he writes his posts.

This is a silly argument.

Correctness is clearly defined by a cultural context. I am arguing against the idea universal moral (or linguistic) truth. I am not arguing against right and wrong as defined in a specific cultural setting.

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I'd be interested in knowing how one would ascertain the existence of a "scientific fact" which were outside human experience. Would we become aware of that through osmosis?

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

Correctness is clearly defined by a cultural context. I am arguing against the idea universal moral (or linguistic) truth. I am not arguing against right and wrong as defined in a specific cultural setting.

If that's seriously what you're arguing, then ante-bellum Southern nonconformists acted immorally in trying to abolish slavery. After all, under the norms of their specific cultural context, they were merely stealing slave owners' property, or trying to condemn it without just compensation. Are you willing to follow your argument to this obvious and logical conclusion?

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

In that sense they are both "relative" as opposed to "absolute",

I don't see how this is the logical conclusion from the rest of what you say. As you say, both languages and moral codes have society-specific aspects as well as universal aspects. How does that invalidate the view that the universal aspects are absolute, and that some moral facts therefore exist?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

But slavery was abolished and thus the morality evolved through a survival of a fitter one after a struggle. The argument offered equally applies to the settlers in an aboriginal culture. The settler nonconformists acted immorally in abolishing the aboriginal culture.

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@fresco,

fresco--

Do you think we are perfectly within our rights to choose to have no morality, an absolute morality, a range of moralities or any morality we collectively decide suits our purposes irrespective of any sophistical considerations?

Do you think we have any choice in the matter due to it being determined by the nature of the human mind interacting economically with a specific landscape?

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@Thomas,

It is not the details which are universal but the "structural architecture" in so far as they must serve common human social needs. (Think of all "buildings" conforming to some aspects of 3D geometry in order to "stand"). As far as "facts" are concerned I seem to be forever pointing out that facts are also human constructions from the Latin, facere , to do, or to make (re faire in French). All talk of "absolutes" tends to become "religious".

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