We are not discussing mathematics, especially theoretical mathematics which can allow for a concept like infinity to be grouped in a set of abstract numbers.
Ok. This is fair enough. A misunderstanding.
We are discussing morality. Inherent to the concept of moral laws are "allowed actions", and "proscribed actions"... moral laws separate one group from the other. By necessity, infinity cannot be a part of either set of actions or no laws exist. Or if there is moral law the only law is that set out in the Satanic Bible "Do what thou will, shall be the whole of the law."
I think this certainly depends upon what exactly you suppose these sets are and what infinity means in the context of these defined sets. My position is simply that these laws exist, but that their scope is infinite. Just as it is possible for a sequence of numbers to continue onward towards infinity, I would suggest it is possible for a set of moral absolutes to continue on towards infinity. Infinity is not a "*" or "?" (wildcard). It is a way of expressing something that has no bounds. For example. If we assign an absolute moral truth a number, no killing for pleasure=1, no rape for pleasure=2, no rape out of bordem=3, etc, then the set of absolute moral truths could resemble {1,2,3,..., infinity}. As God is infinite, so are these moral absolutes. They reflect His nature(which is infinite in scope and perfection). While I perceive them to be infinite, I ultimately have little passion for this in particular. In fact, for the sake of discussion, I could grant you this point and we could continue. Perhaps I could say, that the set of absolute moral truths exist and are only fully known by God and therefore they could go on for infinity. The point behind this is not whether or not ethics are infinite or not, rather what A SINGLE absolute ethic would suggest about the universe in which we live.
I do see however in your later responses that I need to be more exhaustive in demonstrating that a single absolute moral truth more than likely exists.
then you certainly cannot say that everything may end up being allowed according to the infinite being that is God
By infinite, I simply mean the moral laws could continue on forever, not that everything is possible.
On a side note, I do find it interesting that a relativist would make claims on what can or can not be done. Is this allowed within your philosophical system? If so, please explain the justification. Are you not assuming some universal standard of truth exists and that by me suggesting these things it is violating that truth?
Relativism lets everyone point directly at the ethicist and ask "what the hell are YOU talking about?"
I am pretty confident I understand where you are coming from here. I think that it is slightly clouded however and I do not agree with your conclusion. For one, within absolutism, one does have ultimate authority to make claims of right and wrong because they acknowledge that these things exist and that there is a standard that can be worked towards. Within relativism, it does not follow that anyone should make any statements of right and wrong because who is to say such a thing exists? If you say that the only absolute moral truth is To each his own then isn’t this an absolute moral truth in itself? In fact, within relativism wouldn't it be safe to conclude that everyone should do as they wish? Even harm others at times? While I understand that relativism is more complicated than this(and would not agree with such actions), I am simply looking at the final conclusion that relativism offers, namely no judgement claims can be made about anything with any authority. Furthermore, for the more complex issues such as murder out of pleasure, why is it that this is wrong (as far as we can tell) in every civilized culture? If a culture does agree it is ok, do you not agree that it still is wrong? If you do, then what is the justification within the proper confines of relativism? I would maintain that in order to be consistent with relativism, one must concede that if a society kills out of pleasure, than it is ok for that society. In doing this, I simply think that the relativist is making an irrational choice, simply to maintain there relativistic position. Why deny self evident realities in order to fit the world into your system of belief? It simply is irrational in my opinion. Is it not far more likely that there is some absolute standard and that this culture is violating it? Christian theism can give an account for absolute morality., very few others( including relativism), can do the same. The relativist is left with having to deny that these actions are wrong for that society. How does this compare to the alledged contradictions you find within Christianity? An Omni,omni,omin, God who commands violent acts when a greater good comes out of said acts Vs. a society being correct if the consensus agrees to throw the virgin into the volcano or whatever. How is the later example more rational than the former?
I have already conceded that there are problems still within absolutism that require human created(and therefore error prone) solutions. In other words, since the truth (in its fullness ) is ultimately unknowable to man, he still needs to make rational decisions in determining laws for societies. Within absolutism, one could still point the finger to the imperfect human and say "what were you thinking?". That person would then have to give a rational account for that which was claimed. The claim "God told me to do it" would not be rational in my opinion. This can be seen because ultimately we are commanded in scripture to submit to the authority that God has allowed to be placed over us- even a corrupt Roman empire as it was in context.
I will add though, that the fact that an no absolute ethic has ever worked for everyone (leading at best to oppression), tends to suggest that perhaps none exists
OK, I grant this as evidence.
It does still seem as though we are working towards seperate points. I am not an ethicist and am not interested in the application of ethics. As you know, my interest is in the meta. The philosophy of ethics and what these imply about our universe. Within this context, I understand your point and this is a logical conclusion one could make. However, in the broader picture, it is not conclusive by any means. You were careful(I commend) and did note that you do not view it as conclusive only that it suggests that none exist. I agree with your claim that this is evidence against the idea. However, I would not assign it a very large rank since there are many things that we simply have not discovered yet. And perhaps there are ethics in existence that do reflect portions of absolute truth. In fact perhaps some exist now and we simply do not know if it absolute or not. One example would be murder -for errant or NO reason. Is this not an absolute moral law in your opinion? Has this law worked? Certainly the world is better off because of this law do you not agree? Looking at a supposed society where this was ok - say the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany. This was allowed by the ultimate authority in that country do you think then that this is an ok thing to do EVER? This is the ultimate philosophical problem for relativism and to this problem I would assign a large number in deciding whether an absolute moral law exists, and therefore implying that an absolute moral authority exists.
So, while you have some evidence against the idea, surely you would concede I have evidence for the prospect of absolute moral truth. IMHO, the evidence for absolute moral truth, far outweighs the evidence against.
Again the focus was supposed to be on creation of an ethic, not just on how to apply it. I am sorry that my wording was not clear on this point
You have a good point here. While perhaps I have jumped to soon to what the implications of absolute moral truth implies. I grant you have some evidence to suggest it does not, however I still maintain that the evidence for absolute moral truth far outweighs that against. Namely, impossibility(or at least unlikelihood) of the contrary.
I posit to you that if an absolute ethic cannot be constructed, or must be constructed on an ad hoc basis do to the nature of the deity, this renders moot any question of whether an absolute moral authority exists and what its laws are.
I disagree with your conclusion. The simple fact that it is difficult to construct the absolute ethic, does not imply that one does not exist. If there were no other evidence to suggest this, then I would agree. However there are other data points that suggest absolute moral truth exists.
What other evidence do you have that suggests NO absolute moral law exists (besides mans inability to agree on what one might be)? There are many things that we readily agree exist, even though man can not fully agree on the meta of said entity. For example Logic.
grace2u writes:
Does it not follow that if an absolute moral truth exists, then there is something which governs what this truth is?... Rather it is evidence that God does in fact exist and that He is the standard of moral absolute truth
Holmes writes:
No. You cannot make this argument as it is circular. A metaethic comes before an ethic and so the absolute authority must exist before the ethic
I have made an a posteriori conclusion that absolute moral truth exist. Namely from the impossibility of the contrary and from the experiences of life, a more detailed example will follow. Since this is justified in a conversational manner from evidence provided, it should follow a priori that an absolute standard exists and is that which we compare the absolute truth to. The implications of an evidenced absolute moral truth are self evident(a standard exists by which to judge this truth by- it is essentially tautologous), the existence of the absolute truth is evidenced from experience. Now, if this is true then I do maintain that this is evidence that an absolutely moral God exists and He is that standard which we see. By no means is this an exhaustive proof, however it is reasonable and is at least strong evidence for the claims Christianity makes.
You cannot work backward and say there is an absolute ethic, which proves that there is a God, when what you are trying to prove in the first place is that there is an absolute ethic set by God.
Ok, this is fine if I simply presupposed an absolute ethic. Perhaps in this conversation this is how it appears. Lets examine the evidence suggesting there are absolute moral truths and then we can continue.
grace2u writes:
You do have a sense of right and wrong as do I. This is evidence that there exists something called morality. The absolute nature of morality follows because it is reasonable to assume that there is a standard by which we measure our moral judgments by.
Holmes writes:
You make too large a leap in this paragraph. While this does show there is something called morality, the fact that all of us differ on what right and wrong is argues that it is relative and NOT absolute
Now I think we are at step one and probably where this discussion should dwell for a while. I also would agree that this is a large step, although I would also say that this entire conversation has been largely conversational and as such many statements made are large leaps and somewhat random at times.
Consider the possibility of an absolute moral truth. It is wrong to inflict pain on another person against their own will for no other reason than to watch them scream in pain.
One could argue a priori , that it is self evidently wrong and leave it at that.
OR..
One could lend experiential evidence suggesting one exists such as
I know that my life is enjoyable. I know that pain is uncomfortable. While there may be times in which I will go through pain in order that a greater good might come of it, simply allowing someone to be entertained is not desirable. If there was a time I could perceive, then the torture would NOT be against my will, but be in accordance with my will. I can not perceive a situation in which others would have differing opinions regardless of time and cultural differences. It is not a rational concept to me or to any other rational person that this would be allowed. Perhaps a situation could be produced, however I could then make my proposed absolute ethic slightly different and then it would be sufficient. This could continue until a completely ridiculous counter claim could simply be dismissed as highly unlikely or simply irrational, meanwhile the absolute moral truth claim, would most likely still be rational. That is compare:
It is wrong to infilict pain on another person .
What if its in accordance with their will?
OK,
It is wrong to inflict pain on another person even if its against their will.
What if its saving millions.
OK,
It is wrong to inflict pain on another person even if its against their will and the only reason is for their pleasure.
OK, you fill in the blank now.
Eventually the scenario: It is wrong to inflict pain on another person even if its against their will and the only reason is for their pleasure.
Makese sense, but
Someone trying to inflict pain against their will or they will kill millions or even two other people is an irrational concept. The fact that it is irrational to us, provides further evidence that there is some standard absolute behavior by which we can both judge this action by. Surely this standard is not us, we could be wrong as Hitler was.
While this is not formal in any way, certainly one could produce a formal and academic argument along these lines. It is simply more rational to concede that an absolute moral truth exists. And if one does exist, what does this imply?
A singular absolute moral code, would not tend to generate so many moral positions if we are all striving to match that one.
Suppose however that man is imperfect and has a nature to resist these codes. Would we then expect man to reach different conclusions on what these truths are? I would say your conclusion is dependent upon man being perfect as the laws are supposedly perfect.
There is no good in the world, once humans abandon peace and health in the name of following extremist demands of a deity
There could be problems with this yes, however examine the teachings of Christ and do you still come to the same conclusion? In our limited understanding, yes we can see times when we question what God has done or the decision He has made. But everyone of these cases, we can see a greater good occurring can we not? If you look at these actions within the context of the God really existing and His teachings being true, then the few actions which at times are hard to understand become quite understandable. For every one of these actions are there not 100 other perceivable good actions or lessons being revealed? If we are truly fallen would we not perceive some of His actions to be bad? Who are we to judge what an all knowing all good God might or might not do, especially when we are limited in our understanding. This is more evidence that He is who He says He is and that we are who He says we are(limited and fallen disobedient vessels).
Zeus's jealousy is not like mans jealosy in that man is tainted by wickedness. Zeus's vengefullness in a similar way. Not a man made vengence that is irrational and unjust, littered with emotion, rather it is a holy and perfect vengence based soley on truth. It is pure and good because Zeus is pure and good and is the standard by which we measure such things by
Tell me how to differentiate between all of these statements without being completely abritrary or self-serving?
Within the context of Christianity, these problems of vengeance and a jealous God do make sense. Within the context of other religions perhaps they do not. They are not contradictory for Christianity which is what you originally intended to demonstrate. For Zeus or any other diety, given this deities nature (limited and not omni,omni,omni), maybe it is a contradiction. They would have to deal with this alleged problem using their own theology.
I am running out of time and will simply have to leave my statements as they are. If I have misunderstood you at any time, as I have in the past, please clarify. Furthermore, if there are other specific points you wanted addressed, please ask and point me to the question.
Thanks for the thought provoking comments and take care,
Grace2u
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