A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

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@MattDavis,

Yes the overall picture is the same but with different levels of resolution or complexity...otherwise how would we ever come up with the intuition on moral absolutes... Wink

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@MattDavis,

Religion is subjective. The basic tenets of religion are very important to people and very deeply felt but they aren't testable.

Science is objective. The basic tenets of science are observable and testable. This makes science useful in objectively measurable ways that many humans find valuable. We have increased human life expectancy and productivity (we can do more work with less effort).

The idea that there is some Universal Order of right and wrong that we can't observe or test, but that dictates how we should think and act is religion.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Have you ever read any of the work of Ken Wilber?

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@maxdancona,

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We have increased human life expectancy and productivity (we can do more work with less effort).

So is that good? What are we working toward? What are we producing?

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The basic tenets of science are observable and testable.

Ethical tenets informed by morality are testable as well.

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Science is objective.

Not entirely. I have asked you before to provide a definition of science, since you have rejected Kuhn's definition. Would you care to advance a definition now, so that we can all be on the same page?

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@maxdancona,

Religion is just a less developed form of pre philosophy, as science a specific development from it...the three of them develop social cohesion, or try to establish the best working frame in social context...Religion is not just about the existence of God or not but rather uses the idea of God as justification for Law development...its no wonder Religion is a specific human trait as other animals don't have the required critical intellectual mass to develop a religious system, that is, a first attempt on explaining the UNITY in reality.

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@MattDavis,

Nop... but it seams I will have to.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I would recommend Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality. He is not as touchy-feely as most moral philosophers. I don't agree with him on all things but he does do a good job of making serious analysis of religions/philosophies including wisdom traditions such as Buddhism. He is also a pretty fun to read author, doesn't pull any punches. Very Happy

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@Fil Albuquerque,

It does take a certain level of moral/intellectual maturity to transcend a legalistic moral framework. Obedience=Morality.
Recognizing underlying moral principles is no small step, for an individual or a society.

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@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

I would recommend Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality. He is not as touchy-feely as most moral philosophers.

This is enough to make me curious of his work...I never had a very great interest in debating Morality precisely because I always was of the opinion that there is a great deal of noise in the vast majority of Moral philosophy's...as I am already loose and lazy enough to detail debate more tangible and consensual matters regarding Morality and Ethics I mostly keep it to myself...

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@MattDavis,

I think human life expectancy is good. Our society is working toward productivity. I said many people feel it is valuable. These are all subjective things.

The objectively testable statements I made (life expectancy and productivity are increasing) I have stated as objective facts. The value judgements (people find them valuable) are subjective.

Whether human life expectancy is good is a matter of opinion.

I don't know what you mean by saying "Ethical tenets .... are testable". The phrase I have been using is "objectively testable". And I have pointed out before that once you accept some core values on faith, you can build logically testable system of values on top of them.

The admittedly simplistic definition of science I am going with (which has worked so far) is "objectively testable". This means that you can construct an experiment that shows your hypothesis is valid.

You suggested a telescope, a perfect example. There is no moral telescope.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Science is an offshoot of philosophy the way that astronomy is an offshoot of astrology.

They may have common roots and use some common terms, but they have diverged to the point that they don't recognize each other.

While philosophy is busy naval gazing about whether an ontology is an epistomological idea or the other way around , science is busy sending real robots to Mars and developing real cures to real diseases.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

The ironic thing is that the amount of noise (in academic circles) is probably the result of the way moral relativist philosophers treat morality as botany.
Simply cataloging each culture, you know since they are all equally valid. Rolling Eyes

The cultural relativist philosophy:
All truth is relative to culture...well... except the truth that all cultures are equally true, we hold that as true independent of culture.
To do otherwise would be politically incorrect and tantamount to academic suicide.
The culture of wishy-washiness.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

While philosophy is busy naval gazing about whether an ontology is an epistomological idea or the other way around , science is busy sending real robots to Mars and developing real cures to real diseases.

What you mean in here is that you don't like abstractions very much...meanwhile I concede a great deal of philosophy is crap and noise but still I would never indulge in such a simpleminded reasoning on the value of philosophy the way you just did...most of science is build upon philosophical base assumptions from which a testable model may emerge...scientists spend a great deal of time dwelling with philosophical principles specially when they try to go from the mundane to the fundamental...

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

probably the result of the way moral relativist philosophers treat morality as botany.
Simply cataloging each culture, you know since they are all equally valid.

The Moral Absolutist alternative is "my culture is right, any culture that is different is wrong.

Do you think it is coincidence your personal moral code, which happens to mostly match with the culture you were raised in, is the one true moral code?

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@MattDavis,

It is the arrogance of Moral absolutism that is the most annoying. The idea that you have the right to judge other cultures based on your own cultural belief.

I would hope that if there were a absolute morality, arrogance, intolerance and judgmentalism would be frowned upon.

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@maxdancona,

Again it seams to me you are confusing moral "gravitational" proximity a necessity of group binding principles in a system that intends to pragmatically work and evolve within its resolution range, and that resorts to a certain level of complexity and specific languaging with total relativism...while I believe Moral has an Absolute Universal base frame I never intended to mean it was linear.

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@maxdancona,

On the contrary any Absolute any set of sets should encompass and explain all relativistic sub group modeling...thus it must not be conflicting but rather re-conciliating.

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@maxdancona,

Here is the definition I provided:

Matt wrote:

"Kuhn suggests that certain scientific works, such as Newton's Principia or John Dalton's New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), provide an open-ended resource: a framework of concepts, results, and procedures within which subsequent work is structured. Normal science proceeds within such a framework or paradigm. A paradigm does not impose a rigid or mechanical approach, but can be taken more or less creatively and flexibly."--Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

Max wrote:

The admittedly simplistic definition of science I am going with (which has worked so far) is "objectively testable". This means that you can construct an experiment that shows your hypothesis is valid.

How can anything be objectively testable, who is doing the testing, what are they testing it against?

Quote:

You suggested a telescope, a perfect example. There is no moral telescope.

I referenced the letter of Galileo to Kepler, as an anecdote... pointing out the difficulty in dealing with willful ignorance.
Of course you can't prove something if someone won't look. Sad

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@Fil Albuquerque,

If you are making an evolutionary argument than every organism, and certainly every human culture, is on equal footing. We all are here because we have evolved here. Matt wants to declare himself superior and people who aren't like him to be morally deficient. Evolution doesn't give him a basis to make this distinction.

If everything is a product of the same process and everything that has survived has been successful by definition, how do you make the distinction between good and bad?

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A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

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