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Author | Topic: Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I believe just because there were yet any "laws"against it or that the word itself was not yet uttered, prehistoric rape existed. I could be wrong, but that's just how I see things. Rape is a verb. It means, basically, to have sexual relations without the consent of the party you having those relations with. It exists regardless of law, just as much as sleeping or running exists without language. Whether or not that is taboo depends. Is that person an enemy soldier? Many people in history would regard that as 'their just desserts'. Is that person a woman of a conquered region? Many people in history would have regarded that as the just rewards for the conquerors. Even if we all agree that rape is unpleasant for the raped, that doesn't mean we have always, or will always agree on a) The moral status of the rapistb) Whether it is, in fact, rape (see marital rape). This speaks to the subjective nature of morality verses a unwritten code of what seems to be universal taboos and a quasi-objective morality. I would agree with a quasi-objective morality. We are social animals and we've evolved with an instinctual understanding that we have to 'get along' with some group or another. But what 'getting along with' actually means varies by so much there is little that is 'hard-wired', and most of it is learned behaviour. We are evolved to 'do right' by our allies, and to either avoid 'doing wrong' by them - or at least to avoid detection in our wrongs against them. Likewise we are evolved to 'reward' or 'punish' those in our group that do right and wrong by us.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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Dawns basic argument is that God exists.(Premise #1) objective morality is defined by God as is subjectivity itself.(Conclusion #1) Almost. It might be broken down as P1: God existsP2: God defines what is moral C: Our subjective perspectives on morality can be right or wrong but are themselves not morality. Mods basic response...as well as others...is that Dawn cannot prove that God exists even though objective morality as a belief proves it through the Bible. Dawn needs to provide evidence for his stance. Not quite. The statement 'objective morality as a belief proves it through the Bible.' doesn't mean anything at all. My response is actually: I can explain morality without the need for God or any property of objective morality existing outside of our minds. If you think I am wrong, and that God is needed - show this. Asserting is insufficient. A secondary argument exists that even if God exists and even if an objective morality exists, we have no direct access to it and have no way of knowing what it is. Therefore, all we have to work with is our subjective opinions about it anyway.
Or put another way...even if I or anyone else can lay out a framework for objective reality(as a belief) we ourselves are inescapably subjective in our position...given that we are not God. Yes, but this is just an aside - an important one. The issue is that Dawn believes the atheist/naturalist/existentialist position can be proven wrong logically. It's just the logic being employed appears to presuppose the existence of objective morality, so it fails due to circular reasoning or 'petitio principii'. Dawn doesn't recognize this as Dawn is so wrapped up in the certainty of the belief that objective morality obviously exists Dawn does not realize the conclusion has sneaked into the premises at all.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Well no you are incorrect in reality. I notice you didn't show me. Show me where the sweetness is:
What I did KNOW, is that you were going to say that. Well I have already said it, so you don't win any points for that.
Well of course, reality is right, objectively speaking. So what is the real taste of pineapple? Horrible or delicious? You tell me.
Your imaginations of tastiness would have no meaning or perception, if you had no objective thing to put in your mouth correct? There is a pineapple itself. Not the taste itself. That's why I said
quote: So without including a person who experiences the taste (a subjective entity) can you show that flavours exist, in reality itself, objectively, without putting it in the relative and ultimately subjective perspectives like 'you' or 'me' or the like.
But Modulous, this imaginary deity, as you so loosely describe him, is warranted by both reason and reality. Unless you can show me, this is just in your imagination.
In this instance, this imaginary deity is a logical necessary conclusion, of the rational, that only allows, subjective morality to exist, if objective morality actual exists. You just need to deal with my argument regarding this now, rather than asserting it. There doesn't need to be an objective taste for a subjective taste to exist. There just needs to be something objective that triggers the subjective taste response. Likewise there doesn't need to be an objective morality, just objective behaviours that trigger subjective moral responses. If you can't show this is false, you cannot make claims of logical necessity.
And here, is where the fallacy of your position, is demonstrated without any doubt. . Is it absolutely true that ownership is the standard by which we know if someone else takes it, it is actually stealing. Of course, you will answer no, its not, in some relativistic subjective sense. And yet I answer, yes - it is. As I have said before.
Subjective morality is a logical impossibility, within the context of a purely naturalistic enviornement. I've demonstrated this to many ways to mention now You've said it many times, but I don't remember how you demonstrated it. Please remind me. It is, after all, the entire point of this discussion that you do so.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Yes. Without the pineapple, there would be NO taste. With nothing to put in your mouth, there would be nothing to have taste or imagine tastiness, correct? So while the potential for your ability to taste at all, or to imagine tasiness, would exist as another objective reality, it would need to be predicated by an objective in reality, outside yourself, correct? Yes, just like I said.
So while the potential, does exist inside of you to measure or imagine levels of taste or tastiness, this would be called your brain, it would still need to be predicated by something coming into the brain, to measure both taste and tastiness. Your brain cannot produce taste or tastiness, without the outside influence., in this instance another outside objective reality. Exactly. Your brain creates the taste based on stimulus from outside the brain. That's been my entire thesis on morality in this thread.
But for the taste mechanism to work, something needs to shoved or crammed into your mouth correct. Not necessarily, however. It is possible for someone to electrically or magnetically stimulate your brain to produce taste sensations. But that's an aside. Yes, an objective reality is almost certainly required for subjective experiences to form.
Hence your brain has the ability to measure but not create the objective reality outside yourself. So bringing it together. So it seems that no matter how we approach it the brain can only measure or imagine subjective morality, but THIS ONLY WHEN it is already preceeded or predicated by objective morality. And this is where you fall over. There doesn't need to be an objective flavour that I am exposed to, just an objective something that my brain interprets as having a flavour. There is no sweetness itself - which is why you can't point it out in a sugar molecule. The objective things that stimulate my taste sensation are molecules of certain shapes, interacting with my senses - which sends signals of certain types to my brain which results in a subjective experience. An experience nobody else has access to, that is mine alone. Likewise, someone say, committing adultery is information I can see or hear or smell or whatever, is processed in my brain and I have the subjective experience of feeling it is morally wrong (or not morally wrong). The objective reality therefore is my particular brain plus the stimulus of environment, interacting to create a unique and subjective perspective. Morality doesn't have exist objectively, actions exist objectively just as molecules do. But molecules don't have objective flavours, and actions don't have objective morality. There needs to be a taster and the tasted before there is a taste.
So it seems that I can imagine subjective morality, but I cannot even imagine what that would be without an objective standard. You can imagine a tasty pile of dog food, even if you do not find dog food tasty. A dog might, however. Likewise you think stealing is always wrong, I don't. You don't need to imagine subjective morality - that's it right there.
So reason and reality, combined with special revelation which conforms to reality concerning, consciousness and conscience, don't help you at all. I think the 'special revelation' being special is in your imagination.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Correct, very good. But your unique and subjective perspective, which is your brain, doesn't have the ability create a thing called good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. Says you.
Since you use this brain , and subjective perspective, as you call it, to evaluate what might be good, bad,right and wrong, you would first need to establish how you decided that these things are actually, good, bad right and wrong. My brain decides these things are good, bad, right, wrong. It does this as has evolved to do this. The specifics of which are right and wrong come from learning - following the norms we find ourselves in built by culture through time on the back of evolved predispositions.
IOWS if you are going to use your own perspective, to decide, we immediately see that falls apart logically in deciding what is right and wrong, due to the fact that there are as many perspectives as there are people. Just because I decide something is morally wrong - it doesn't mean I am factually correct. There is no factually correct just as there is no factually correct decision about whether pineapples are tasty.
Tastiness won't work as an example because it is just another perspective Yes, it is just another perspective. Like whether something is right or wrong. There are things which are commonly thought to be tasty, just as there are things thought commonly to be 'wrong'. But even then, there are seldom absolute universally agreed upon perspectives.
I'm sure even monkeys and dolphins have the ability to percieve things to a certain extent. But neither monkeys, dolphins or humans, have the ability or the means to know what is ACTUALLY right or wrong, to know what is, subjective or otherwise. Exactly my point. There is no ACTUALLY right or wrong.
So it remains only an imagination or perspective Yes, it is a perspective. That's what subjective means.
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