A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

@MattDavis,

Matt, I think you are being silly. That is not what testable means.

1) Objectively testable means that you can design an experiment to test that your theory is correct. And you are the one who is arguing for an absolute morality.

I am claiming that it is impossible design an objective experiment to prove or disprove a moral "fact". I can't give evidence because I believe that any system of morality is subjective meaning that there are many systems that encompass all moral values.

2) As I said I like Kohlberg. He gives a good model of the different ways that people understand morality. He specifically allows people to come up with different subjective views of what is right or wrong.

Kohlberg is a tangent. If you pick a moral issue, for example rape. Show me anywhere that Kohlberg has any opinion on whether rape is acceptable or not.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over again because you and Thomas keep ignoring my key point.

We are not ignoring your key point, we just happen to think it's false. But I, too, feel I keep saying the same thing over and over again. So I'll stop.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

maxdancona wrote:
In the great variety of human languages no one is saying that there are better languages or worse languages.

Quote:

You may want to get in touch with our fellow A2K member Sozobe. She is a Deaf woman who has very strong opinions about American Sign Language being a much better language than Signed English. (ASL is the native language of America's Deaf community; Signed English is a transliteration of spoken English into hand gestures.) And not only does Sozobe have strong opinions about the matter, she can tell you exactly why her judgment is true.

I think you are stretching it here, Thomas, trying to invalidate Max's argument. It's easy to grasp why Sozobe knows that ASL is a much better language than SEE. SEE isn't a language. It's more a glorified Morse Code.

Quote:

Since knowledge of English structure is a prerequisite for the understanding of SEE, SEE can be described as a code not a language.

...

SEE is not considered a language in itself like ASL, but functions as a first language for the children who use it and whose family members use it. Technically, it is an invented system for a language—namely, for English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_Exact_English

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To sum up:

(1) Subjecting morality to scientific standards of proof is a form of question begging, since anyone who insists upon a scientific standard is already assuming that morality is inductively provable or disprovable. That, however, is assuming as a fact that which needs to be proven, and it has no bearing on an argument that posits morality as deductively valid.

(2) For anyone to attempt to prove, by means of reason, that reason cannot provide the basis for morality, is the very acme of irony.

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@joefromchicago,

That's bogus Joe.

1) Subjecting religion to scientific standards of proof is not question begging. It is simply making the distinction between science, which has an objectively testable basis of its claims, from religion which has none. Of course, you can define "truth" anyway you want to. I would never say that science is the only truth, I am only saying that science has the advantage of being objectively testable.

2) It is perfectly reasonable to prove, by means of reason, that reason can not provide the basis for religion. Most reasonable people accept this.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1) Subjecting religion to scientific standards of proof is not question begging.

Who said anything about religion?

maxdancona wrote:

It is simply making the distinction between science, which has an objectively testable basis of its claims, from religion which has none. Of course, you can define "truth" anyway you want to. I would never say that science is the only truth, I am only saying that science has the advantage of being objectively testable.

I don't disagree that science and religion are distinguishable. But if you're suggesting that religion is invalid because it is not objectively testable, my response would be: sez who?

maxdancona wrote:

2) It is perfectly reasonable to prove, by means of reason, that reason can not provide the basis for religion. Most reasonable people accept this.

If you think that morality cannot be supported by reason but that the opposite position can be, I'd say you may have overlooked a significant flaw in your reasoning.

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@joefromchicago,

Do you believe that astrology (i.e. horoscopes etc) cannot be supported by reason, but that the opposite position can be?

I don't see a difference between absolute morality and anything else that can't be objectively tested.

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@joefromchicago,

I am also not suggesting that religion is invalid. Religion is clearly an important part of many societies and although I don't believe in God as a scientific fact, I use religion as part of my culture.

But, when someone comes to me and says "I have the one true religion" I am instant skeptical. I mean, given the fact that religion is not objectively testable, how can they possibly say that?

Morality is no different than religion. If someone says "I have the one true morality" I am just as skeptical, although obviously morality plays a big role in society and is important in my personal life.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

I am instant skeptical.

You are probably taking this a bit too far, Max.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Do you believe that astrology (i.e. horoscopes etc) cannot be supported by reason, but that the opposite position can be?

Astrology makes empirical claims that can be easily disproved. Neither the claim nor the proof, therefore, relies solely on a logical analysis.

maxdancona wrote:

I don't see a difference between absolute morality and anything else that can't be objectively tested.

I know you don't see the difference. That's the problem.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am also not suggesting that religion is invalid. Religion is clearly an important part of many societies and although I don't believe in God as a scientific fact, I use religion as part of my culture.

That's fine. I have no idea why you want to talk about religion, but that's fine.

maxdancona wrote:

But, when someone comes to me and says "I have the one true religion" I am instant skeptical. I mean, given the fact that religion is not objectively testable, how can they possibly say that?

Because if all religions were the same, there wouldn't be multiple religions.

maxdancona wrote:

Morality is no different than religion. If someone says "I have the one true morality" I am just as skeptical, although obviously morality plays a big role in society and is important in my personal life.

I can't imagine why morality would be important in your personal life. If morality is merely subjective, then it's no different from an esthetic choice. You might as well say that your preference for blue over red is similarly important in your personal life.

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@joefromchicago,

I sure hope that you're not billing this time to your clients, Joe.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

(2) For anyone to attempt to prove, by means of reason, that reason cannot provide the basis for morality, is the very acme of irony.

Are you sure? The notion of such an attempt looks like any garden-variety reductio ad absurdum to me.

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@joefromchicago,

Joe,

You are asking me to believe in some invisible order that rules the Universe. I can't see it, or touch it or do any kind of test to prove existence other than the fact that people feel it is true.

And I am supposed to let this invisible law rule my life?

How is absolute morality different than any other religion?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Joe,

You are asking me to believe in some invisible order that rules the Universe. I can't see it, or touch it or do any kind of test to prove existence other than the fact that people feel it is true.

And I am supposed to let this invisible law rule my life?

Why is the existence of an objective morality so absurd? As a believer in subjective morality, you let an invisible non-law rule your life, and you can't see, touch, or test that either.

maxdancona wrote:

How is absolute morality different than any other religion?

Most religions are based on faith, not on reason.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Are you sure? The notion of such an attempt looks like any garden-variety reductio ad absurdum to me.

I'm not so sure about that, but my point is that, if subjective morality can be established by reason alone, it's inconsistent to claim that objective morality can't. After all, the same empirical tests that supposedly disprove objective morality would be equally fatal to subjective morality.

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@maxdancona,

Hey Max,
I get the distinct impression that you feel atheism/naturalism is in conflict with absolute morality. I don't know if you are familiar with the "New Atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, Christopher Hitchens).
Sam Harris is a neurobiologist, an outspoken critic of religion, a naturalist, and he disagrees.
Maybe he can help explain the distinction between "invisible law" as you put it and moral principles (where I have failed to do so).

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@MattDavis,

Don't get confused between "atheism" and the absence of religion. Atheism, if you take it mean a lack of belief in God, encompasses a wide variety of beliefs. I am technically an atheist by the dictionary definition of the word. But, under this definition people of any moral belief can fit.

Of course I am familiar with the "New Atheists", and it might not surprise you to know that I think they bogus. Sam Harris, in particular, has some views that many of us would find as extreme.

I did listen to the video. It is chock full of unsupported claims that he calls "facts", including his claim that every moral belief is concerned with the well-being of conscious creatures and his statement (unsupported) that "morals are facts".

His "moral landscape" slide was particularly bogus. He didn't even try to explain what the z-axis is. And if I claimed that this graph was upside-down (meaning that the peaks should be valleys) how would we decide if I was correct? (You can't, because the very idea of a moral landscape isn't backed by anything in the real world).

Sam Harris is a televangelist. He is very smooth and he sounds reasoned in what he is peddling, but there still isn't anything there that is objective or testable.

Sam Harris is a televangelist.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Of course, Finn, if there is a God, than there is an absolute morality. I don't believe in God, which leads to my disbelief in absolute morality. It shouldn't surprise you that my logical arguments against moral absolutes are the same as my arguments against the existence of God.

My surprise was limited to your apparent unwillingness to abide by the hypothetical you created.

Thomas has already addressed the possibility of God without corresponding absolute morality, but this only works with the notion of fallible Gods we find in many "primitive" cultures. The gods of the Greeks, the Norsemen and many others often made mistakes which reflected far more sophisticated thought than pantheists are generally credited.

I would suggest that there can be an absolute morality without the existence of God or gods. If there are absolute physical laws, it should be possible for there to be absolute laws for human behavior.

Now, someone will surely argue that there are no absolute physical laws, and perhaps this is the case when considering something called the Multiverse rather than simply our Universe, but I've not seen serious contentions that gravity behaves differently in other galaxies than it does in ours. Such contentions may be there (and if they are I welcome being educated) but I've not seen them.

The difference between absolute physical and moral laws is the former cannot be broken (at least not in any way we can imagine) and the latter, obviously, can. However absolute moral laws may have a similar strength to their physical counter-parts in that if "obeyed" or "followed" they will lead to bliss, peaceful harmony or fill in the blank with your favored state of being for individuals and humanity as a whole.

Just as physical laws have had to be "discovered," perhaps moral laws must be as well.

In both arenas we have had human sages who have imperfectly led us to understanding.

You can, I think, believe in absolute morality without believing in God.

If there is an absolute morality, than it's not only a shame but tragic that while we celebrate efforts to understand absolute physical laws, we, largely, scorn even the notion that absolute morality exists.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

I would suggest that there can be an absolute morality without the existence of God or gods. If there are absolute physical laws, it should be possible for there to be absolute laws for human behavior.

The difference is that absolute physical laws can be objectively tested. As I have said many times, that is a big distinction between science and religion (or any non-science).

Quote:

However absolute moral laws may have a similar strength to their physical counter-parts in that if "obeyed" or "followed" they will lead to bliss, peaceful harmony or fill in the blank with your favored state of being for individuals and humanity as a whole.

This demonstrates the problem.... is the goal to maximize "bliss" or is the goal to maximize "peaceful harmony" or is the goal to maximize "fill in the blank"?

It is possible to measure any of these things (if they are well defined enough). Once you choose the underlying values you can build a system of morality.

But no one has even hinted at a way to decide on underlying core values that isn't completely arbitrary.

There are an infinite number of systems of morality that are based on an infinite number of possible core values. My personal system of morality maximizes liberty, dignity and the value of human life (as I define them). Other systems of morality maximize "family values" or God's will or social order. As we see different underlying values leads to different moral codes.

The problem is that there is no way to determine which moral values have any intrinsic value. No one has proposed any way to measure this and no one has even hinted at an experiment that we could do to choose which underlying values to follow.

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A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

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