Atheist morality

I don't think it is. I think there is a case for anyone to make that clergy who end up molesting kids (or adults for that matter) aren't actually clergy.Their official duties clash pretty mightily with those actions. To do them, and continue to do them, yet remain clergy... especially when the actions themselves bring believers into "wrong" action... is to remove onesself from that profession.This holds for other professions as well. I guess when a cop goes bad, I'd see it more as a case of a criminal with a badge, than a cop who happens to be a criminal.Of course this should be for priests who commit all sorts of other violations of their faith. All this said, if for some reason the faith does allow for fallen or "ailing" people to continue to practice as clergy (I am not sure if this is the case with Catholocism) then I think it does hold true that they are clergy who molest, and not molesters acting as clergy. In that case they'd be no different than any other fallen person.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I also do not think that this is what happens, yet I do not believe it is a valid question.Again I have to go with the cop analogy. Did a bad cop become and officer in order to gain greater access and power for nefarious intentions? I don't think so. But there are a lot of bad cops anyway. The pressure of the job, and maybe financial difficulties create temptations to any cop.Those temptations are to renounce their actual professional duties and act as a criminal. Once this is done, I really feel I cannot consider them police who happen to be criminals... they are criminals who are using a badge as cover.Yes they began as honest cops, but turned into criminals with badges.Of course this is all semantics so no one is right. I just feel this is more accurate/useful way of looking at it.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Whoops. If this is what he meant, then I think he is wrong. I didn't mean to sound like I was defending that idea.I agree that cops and clergy more likely go bad on the job, rather than enter the profession with ulterior motives. In fact I was writing that very think to Oook as you were writing your reply to me.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I am coming into this discussion late, but the subthread title attracted my attention and I read through what has been discussed so far. Being that it is a very close subject to much of my preferred studies in philosophy, I feel I might have something to add.To start with I will state that I am in complete disagreement with your position. I think it is a convenient and ethnocentric way of constructing a rationale for absolutism. Yeah that sounded like ad hominem, but bear with me as I did not write it in a mean spirited way. Frankly I like your writing in general and I don't think the mistake I think you made was intentional, or had some conscious ulterior motive.I think I am on the side of Ben, in that I believe that morals and ethics are purely subjective (greater than just cultural differences) and reason, logic and universalizability are NOT sufficient to create them.I also think that one of the biggest problems in discussing this topic is that most people simply do not want to admit that their morals or ethics are basically irrational desires, constructed to sound like they should have some meaning to someone else.Okay so enough of the setup. Here is why...The definition of morals as they are being discussed here have been claimed to be about social phenomena, and including labels of right and wrong. Yet there are moral proscriptions that have everything to do with nonsocial situations, and some systems have no such concept of right and wrong.A true relativist or subjectivist would not say that the systems which have the greatest logic or are universalizable carry more weight, but simply recognize that there are many other valid systems which can be in play with trade-offs regarding logical rigor and universalizability (among other aspects).Logical CONSISTENCY is important, in order for something to be claimed a system of rules, but that the rules start from a point of logic or must have some logical basis is not. Universalizability is even less important, especially in the way you are using it as you assume the logical validity of your own position.The example you keep using is hetero vs homosexual relationships. You clearly view both types of relationships as identical and so conclude to have a rule system which accepts one but not the other is not to universalize. But that is not true. One can have a system which says that hetero relationships are acceptable as they are the natural (most common) state of affairs, and homosexual relationships are not because they are not the most common and in fact are harmful.Remember even the "golden rule" system can be generalized to IF NO HARM, then it is okay. But what is harm? Okay you have a logical, universalizable rule, but inside that rule you have used a purely subjective concept which itself is like a concept of morality. Harm is very close to "bad".It seems that most social systems derive from personal experiences in culture (that is in interacting with others). When one is growing up one learns, even if not taught, that one does not like to have one's toys taken away by bullies, or have arbitrary punishments enacted on onesself by those in power. Thus the concept of "unfair" and "unjust" emerge as one likes or dislikes the influence of power on outcome in any social interaction.Then there is the cultural element of patent like and dislike of specific things, usually based on familiar/unfamiliar. This is more readily imparted through learning.None of this creates a moral system as you have described: thought out and logical systems involving concepts of "good" and "bad", through an acceptance of a basic social contract. It is merely a personal system of likes and dislikes that while similar between many individuals (and to a greater degree among individuals of a specific culture) are about preference from getting one's feelings hurt or soothed.The only necessary "social contract" coming out of this is basically a political one and not a moral one. If you and I are going to continue to interact we can agree that action A is off limits because we both dislike it. That does not make it morally wrong, but socially sanctioned as "agreed we will not do this".But most people, especially after the rise of organized religion, are not content with merely admitting their rules are based on "feelings", or appeals to common political law. These people create what we call moral systems. They lie somewhere between personal feelings and the law. In essence moral systems (as practiced) are the artificial conflation of personal feelings (or personal ethical systems) to the level of law.I am fine using the terminology which has come out of the rise of "moral systems", but am depressed that very few seem to actually take apart the box to see what it is, and instead try to rationalize its existence as somehow based in reason or some form of truth.Perhaps it is an inherent issue of not wanting to feel irrational, but why not? Why can we not admit that we can be "good" social (civil) beings, even if working from and with rules which stem from personal and so irrational feeling?To my mind realizing this, will be the first step toward undoing the absolutism most people including self-professed relativists practice. Undoing that will go a long way in aiding the actual social contract we have to live under which is political and not moral in nature. Otherwise we do rationalize "culture wars" and give rise to using political systems to fight moral ones.I hope this made sense.To review I think Rouseau has to some effect, and you in specific here, have mistaken naturally arising concepts of reciprocity and social expectation (which naturally give rise to political systems), to be evidence for a necessary and logic based thing called "moral systems".I argue they are not based in logic, but from emotions, primarily the emotion of wanting to say "I am right and you are wrong" so as to make one's personal ethical preferences carry a weight of authority they do not inherently possess over another's system, and thus create a pseudo-political system.Given that we have lived with such concepts for centuries (over a millenia) it is not suprising to feel that they are necessary or have some logical validity. That indeed we can discover logical reasons for rules that actually say "good" or "bad" about an action, and that systems of social rules without such concepts are not moral systems... that people who do not function with concepts as "good" and "bad" are amoral or immoral and will be antisocial elements that must be fought, at the very least as intellectual inferiors incapable of understanding reason and logic and the NECESSITY of having good/bad moral systems.And in addition, after having accepted the concept of good/bad moral systems as a logic driven enterprise, you have made the further mistake of assuming the external validity of some subjective criteria, such as harm and the nature of universalizability.Okay, I hope that was all clear. I look forward to your response. Just remember I didn't mean anything in a mean spirit.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

But I honestly do not believe you are demonstrating any fallibility with an absolute code, and indeed move on to argue for essentially another absolute code to replace the one you do not agree with. Hopefully the following answers will explain this better... Actually there are things which can be done with two males which cannot be done by a male and female, depending on how you want to look at the situation. And if both guys are uncut there are a couple more.But more important than that, I am certain you can think of something a hetero couple can do that homosexual couples (of either sex) cannot. That is usually where the proscriptions on sexual activity begin, cutting out any but the things that hetero couples can do exclusively.For those not familiar with me, I am not advocating this position, just stating that it does exist and how it may be internally valid, as well as universalizable. This has been the subject of several threads and I (as ironically enough people meaning to support the above question) have shown that people do have the ability to point out "harm" when sexual activity results from homo vs hetero activity.I'm not sure I want to run through everything all over again, but will point you to the threads on the harm of homosexuality, internet porn, child sex, and general porn/prostitution. Harm is a social construct much the same as good or bad. We can always start with defining them as strictly physical in nature as possible, but that is usually not sufficient for most people. And several people, including those who support gay rights have argued that in all cases but homosexuality and interracial sex we must take into consideration societal effects as real harm.To me, I do not see any "harm", but then I am basing my criteria on problems stemming directly from the physical acts being engaged in. That is not the only system available, and as it stands moral proscriptions do not have to be based on harm. That is another point that people seem to be missing. Well I hope it does, since my argument is that most concepts of morality are inaccurate and of little use. I think we'd be better off viewing them as definitions of personal proscriptions regarding social activity, rather than as objective rules regarding the actions of members within a society. This is not true. I know my rules are not bigger than me, and yet I maintain some measure of consistency because that is my nature. I think most people have, or grow into sets of habits which define their nature and so will operate with some consistency regardless of whether there are rules in place "above" them.And conversely, despite moralizing on both sides of the fence here, almost everyone does fluctuate from time to time on the rules. Thus people, though generally consistent, will have deviations from time to time and obviously feel vindicated in those switches. I read your initial post and disagree with it, almost on every level.To begin with I do not think morals are generally a priori rule sets, or even a posteriori thought out rules. I find most moral systems are rationalizations for continued behavior that you happen to like and want to say your way is better than another.The reason I believe this is that you can find the "golden rule" within the animal kingdom, and even within children who have not sat and thought about concepts of morality. That "universal code" is simply a manifestation of practical living between two independent beings. They learn through actions that that is generally the best policy, especially among those of equal power.Of course this is why when an inequality of power develops, the golden rule often flies right out the window. The difference between humans and animals is that we can think about it and vocalize the principle. That does not make it an objective reality nor something "above" the individual. What it is, is a definition of a principle that most find useful and to be consistent... just.However, in vying for power, people have also added the ability to argue for morality which is not just a definition, but a way of advertising their own feelings as being superior to others. It is no longer that people need to act as civil entities, but that they must be moral entities which means doing what I like to do.The only thing that I see as proper in judging the "worthiness" of a moral system, is its level of consistency. And that is only because if it is not consistent, then it is simply not a system. Oh yes and factual issues. If someone's system is based on factual errors, then there are flaws to that system.After that there is no real better or worse, except to the individual based on personal tastes. You can appeal to others based on taste, but that is different than saying one has a "better" logic or "better" outcome, such that people should switch. Internal logic yes, but besides that systems that happen to involve more logic are not necessarily better (take a look at Kant for that), and universalizability is simply your preference and not an objective rule for anything.My own moral system contains no concepts of good or bad, it is a virtue/vice system (not to mistake that as anything close to good/bad labelling) and allows for a vast array of human decisions and preferences and habits that cannot be universalized, especially based on specific actions. In my system, which is derived from ancient pagan and some eastern philosophy, context is more important than nature of action. It is not evolution, but rather the adaptation of two or more independent systems finding a practical solution to actions between them. It reduces conflict and improves general comfort. But as I said that is when power is relatively balanced or the difference unknown.Once power is out of balance new rules need to come into play. The golden rule as a steady rule may more or less be the understanding of entities that over time power balance will fluctuate and so maintaining reciprocity in the face of one's own superior position, is advantageous to all.I hope that didn't come across as saying it is out of greed. I don't agree much with the "selfish gene" theory. I mean it as a foresight for maintaining status quo. But it is certainly moral. After an incident where one or one's identified group has been attacked, it certainly is moral to have exacted some measure of reprisal and feel good about it.Would it not have been moral to have felt really great if Bush was voted out of office, to say "we sure showed those ignorant self-serving antiamerican fundamentalist idealogues a thing or two"?Indeed having shown them the door would have been quite a moral victory (honesty, liberty, justice), in my view point. I might have even said it was good, real goooooooooood.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

My own appearances here may be sporadic, with gaps of up to a week at a time. Take your time.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

First of all, I believe the only real moral rule in most religions is "obey", the rest are more or less temporarily invoked subrules and not absolutes. This is quite clear in the Bible with changing rules systems based on God's faith in man.In any case, the above is actually a support for my own position. I said internal consistency and factual error are the only possible sources of criticism of a moral system. You just gave an example of a factual error, at the very least a perceived factual error. For those that do not like the attitude, that would not lessen the validity. One can decide to do bad, or reject good. I'm sorry but this is wholly errant. It is simply arguing from your conclusion. For those opposed to homosexuality most view a family home as a man and woman having, or at least trying to have, kids. It is obvious that the Bible is using procreation as a center for moral proscription on sexual activity. Remember, it does not just condemn homosexuality.Indeed even in the ancient past which accepted homosexual acts, they did NOT under any circumstance view those relationships as family "home". Having kids was extremely important and if you want to talk about universals, that is exactly what is found across cultures and time.It is only in the very recent past that we have gays trying to complete their version of the traditional "home", by getting married and "having" kids.And as far as whether the gov't should do anything, that is a totally separate subject which I think you already know what I feel. This appears to be contradictory. But in any case the role of "universalizability" as a factor in judging moral systems is simply a subjective criteria. As far as I am concerned I don't see its utility at all, and you have not provided any logic or evidence in support of this besides saying what you like. You are confusing your desires with reality. There is no practical, nor logical necessity for there to be moral proscriptive systems based on some uber-reason. You are simply describing the role of personal taste and social custom, generating from personal experience and learning to interact with fellow beings. In your reply you never dealt with my counterexamples of other social animals not requiring thought out moral systems to function. There is also a field of aesthetics (rules for beauty) and metaphysics (what is beyond the physics) and my guess is the fact that both can involve supernatural (or psychological/spiritual) elements does not suggest to you that they are of relative importance and true.Yeah, I think lots of people find proscriptive moral systems important, that is what philosophy has been consumed with since religion became so important to creating the rules from outside human life.If you look at philosophy before or outside that framework, you will find that the field of "morality" is/was a descriptive one. Mine is a descriptive one. Of course, but now I can't because there is no such a thing as "against" my code. All acts are moral acts, simply defining your moral character. My habits, which I am less likely to defy, are what will ultimately shape my moral character.I think you are confusing habitual nature of humans (based on personal taste), with a real system of Moral values which have some logical reason for existence.Let me make this plain, you cannot get from a set of facts and logic to an "ought" or a "good" conclusion. That is simply not possible. Somewhere along the line there will have to be a premise which is based on personal taste, or social custom which gives thumbs up or down for something and is not objective. Make no mistake, when I discuss consistency, I am not coming close to your concept of universalizability. A system must be consistent with itself and NOT with what you feel counts as consistency when applied to the world as you see it. I ran through my system a long time ago at EvC and I am tired of repeating myself. Its not your fault you didn't see it, but I am not going to restart now.Lets just say that virtues and vices in their original context, not after being adapted to ideas of sin, where descriptive in nature. It was not bad to have a vice and indeed it would be somewhat inhuman not to have one. Some are even necessary from time to time. If you want to understand more check into moral philosophy by pagans (real ancient ones), or some of the recent revivals of pagan religions.I believe at Wikipedia you can see and example under "Asatru". Look at the tenets section of the page where it discusses the difference in its moral system from most modern systems. Perhaps I do underestimate it. That is as it should be as a scientist. I see no reason to invoke evolution in moral psychology when adaptation during ones life is all that is necessary. I had been debating an evolutionary psychologist on this matter in the thread titled "evo-psych the third outrage of evolution" or some such nonsense that another poster had started.I find evo-psych to be like ID but appealing to evolution instead of a a God, in order to grant it legitimacy. If you have any evidence that evolution has controlled human psychology at the moral level then I'm all open to it. In my system, yes. It defines your moral character. My guess is that in most cases it would display ignorance and injustice. That is not equivalent to being "wrong".Wrong or criminal would come from the laws we have constructed together. If we have no laws in place that would proscribe it, then it would be allowed but personally against my taste and I woud find it offensive. I would likely fight such a thing because that is my moral character.On top of that I am unsure what the utility of such an action would be, but not being a utilitarian, cannot move from that to a moral conclusion.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I am more than well aware of all of the examples you gave and have used some of them before in other debates (usually regarding political issues). They really have no bearing on the subject at hand.A "family" is traditionally viewed as parents and natural offspring. Certainly that is exactly what marriage was constructed for and not around ideas of simply reassuring people's emotional commitments. You can see that in abundance in history if you look back through cultures at marriage and family, including ones that were fully accepting of gays.If you are not aware of this then you need to go back to research. While one could have gay relationships that were accepted, and even to some extent socially sanctioned as special, they almost uniformly (there are no exceptions I know of) do not count that as "family" and indeed the partners usually end up forming "families" with separate partners of opposite sex to grow that "family home". In Greek society for example it was common for male lovers to help pick out the wife of their partner. The lovers did not have a "family" or "home" of their own.If you want to talk about modern developments in ways of thinking about family, or variations based on emotional needs (due to societal rules), that is something else entirely. As it stands, infertile couples could try to have kids, and elderly people usually already have them and so join families. Whether the first try, or the latter do not have is irrelevant. The question is where does the concept come from, and in this context the traditional concept.Thus both your many of your examples fit what I was talking about, though I might point out that infertiliy is usually discovered after marriage and has been a common reason for ending marriages. It doesn't take much reflection to realize that marriage and the original concept of family was not centered on "two people in love" without chance of or already having had children.Like I said though, modern concepts can be different. Indeed you do not see me arguing they cannot or should not change. But to not recognize the traditional concept and what it originated from seems a bit disengenuous. I do not see why you are not understanding that you are creating a rule which is not necessary, nor even something which causes a problem.Sexual moralists certainly can say that their rules are applying to all people. No matter who you are, one should not be having sex with same sex partners, as well as engaging in sexual acts which do not allow for procreation. That is a rule which does apply to everyone.The only problem is for homosexuals who have an extremely limited sexual appetite, they will... by no fault of the rule... have their preferred sexual activities proscribed.If we were to follow your logic then a rule against anal sex would be "wrong" because it would not be universal to gays or straights who happen to only like anal sex, or that proscriptions against eating meat are "wrong" because they are not universal to those who only like to eat meat.I am not sure if you have read Kant, but he essentially tried this universalizability thing with his moral theory and its been pretty well disassembled as it leads to no rules. One cannot universalize in a way that is acceptable or usable to all.About the only thing which is universalizable is do as thou will. The idea that proscriptive moral systems are universal or necessary is simply not true and I even pointed to where you could find one counterexample and there are more. Certainly if monotheism had not gained in popularity, proscription would not be so common as it is now. The only objective criteria for judging "validity", which may only require a fix and not act as a refutation, is internal consistency and factual accuracy. There is no objective necessity for universalizability.Maybe I should give a more concrete example of why this is so. Morals, specifically proscriptive ones, are as you have pointed out about interaction within a group. But there is no reason why a moral system must be usable by all groups and good reasons for some groups to have additional moral rules.Monks in a monastery are still part of the Christian faith as a whole, and society at large, but they do require (or it is valid if they enact) moral rules not common to either larger community because they have a unique identity and nature which might call for different proscriptions (for example silence at all times except prayer and certain business functions).Families tend to build their own moral systems, such as orders for who uses the bathroom and for how long, or how privacy is defined that others should not violate it, or even that the females will do one set of chores while the males do another.Business offices will build their own moral systems regarding privacy and nature of conversations (for example it is taboo to discuss what you earn, or ask others about it).The idea that any of these systems would, or could, apply to everyone else is absurd on its face. There are reasons for the different rules because of the different nature of the social entity. To claim they are "wrong" or "immoral" because they can't be used by everyone else appears equally absurd.That is exactly how the larger moral systems came into being, and for Judeo-Xian tenets that is pretty explicit in their scripture. They created rules which were just for them and were used to identify them as separate from other cultures around them. Indeed some Biblical scholars have suggested the homosexual proscription was possibly just to identify them as separate from the Canaanites. Thus an analogy to monks forming their moral system within the larger society is an apt one.Xians are currently trying to claim that the US is a Xian nation and so should embody those moral proscriptions. I would dispute that as well as whether laws should have any connection to moral systems in the first place (in the US anyway). But I cannot simply say their system is invalid because it is not universalizable. Check out the last few posts in the thread between me and Parsimonious Razor. It started late in the thread and focused on the research itself. I have done a bit of research on it now (in fact my gf is in psychology and coincidentally had to research it at the same time so I got a bit of info) and see no difference between that and ID. The claims are circular and not testable in any objective fashion. It is deductive and not inductive.The fact that PR jumped out, and it wasn't because debate became too charged, just like ID proponents has not helped me change my opinion. Again, I disagree. Kind of interesting that we are so far apart on this topic, as we are usually pretty close. I suspect that you have formulated your position without enough research into moral philosophy.The idea that moral systems must have a "utility" which can be judged objectively (especially by comparison) is itself errant. There are teleological and deontological moral systems, deontological systems pretty well defy utility, or comparative utility. In fact one is essentially using a teleological system to judge a deontological system to make the statement you did, which shows the nature of its circularity.So I think your position, even if accurate to what you believe, is errant.You also did not get my position correct. I am a relativist and believe that no moral system can be judged as objectively right or wrong, or even useless.Specific systems can be checked and perhaps refuted based on internal inconsistencies (for example "it is bad to kill", and then with no other rule also say "it is good to kill"), or factual inaccuracies.They may have function and so some measure of utility to a group, and that I do not deny. I can even accept and do form some moral rules within small groups with which I will work for a long period of time, that are beyond the natural taste/social convention that every relationship forms (i.e. the golden rule kind of thing).I do find proscriptive moral systems, outside of a religious or authoritarian structures, unnecessary and unnatural. That is they are rather artificial as they do not reflect the fluid nature of human existence and action. Certainly good and evil are not objectively real, and the fact that most people have come to accept this codification of action, has had detrimental effects in understanding and dealing with other humans rationally.That doesn't make such systems wrong, only what I said... artificial and not useful to the extent they are being applied. The rise of fundamentalism seems to me almost a mental illness, where people require codified thought and action, rather than using their own brain.In any case, I do like older moral systems that are descriptive and not proscriptive. They are not very utilitarian in the sense of allowing one to bash another's beliefs and actions, but they are useful in trying to understand the difference between one's character and another.{edited to make it cleaner and remove some smarmy throwaway comments}This message has been edited by holmes, 05-05-2005 08:41 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I think there would be some ability for people to argue the non universality of definitions in legal situations, but in this case I'd be a proponent of not making distinctions. Therefore I don't want to get into a debate on it.My main issue was with moral systems, not legal or political ones. The conception of family and marriage in specific has always always always throughout culture and history been about parents and offspring. There have been legal and political definitions which deal with outlier cases (bastards/adoptions, etc), but none (throughout culture and history) have extended to gay relationships. That is because laws have been concerned with defining family with an eye toward lineage for purposes of rights and property. Then you are for a change in the conception of family. That's fine. I'd even support that position. The point is that you cannot claim it is anything but a product of recent initiatives on that subject. You have been seeming to appeal to some history of this, and it just does not extend further back than last century.And I'll tell ya why. Up until last century (well the 1890's actually) religion and legal dogma restricted sex based on reproduction because of moral concerns. Those who did not believe in the religion or religious dogma did not feel the need to have to go through the blatantly religious ritual of sanctifying their sexual relationship.But with the victorian movement and more importantly the early feminist movement which accepted Xian patriarchal victorian sexual mores as real, suddenly people who had no truck with religion viewed sex as objectively existing (even outside religion) as religious dogma stated, needing ritual sanction.This is why we now have people arguing monogamy is natural and has some evolutionary basis, despite universal counterexamples, and a gay movement which cares about attaining a religious dogma based name, rather than legal rights. We have to remember where this debate started. You were saying that morals are based in reason and logic and required some thing (or could be judged by) "universalizability". I challenged your assessment in its entirety.First, proscriptive moral systems are wholly subjective. You simply cannot get from a list of facts and logicall rules, to an "ought" or a "good/evil" conclusion. Thus they are not based in logic or reason and need not be universalizable. Only if you can prove that one can reach a proscriptive moral rule (even one) from a series of facts and logical rules, then you will have saved your position. Otherwise it is remains challenged/refuted.Second, logic dictates that two subjective systems cannot objectively assess each other outside of states of fact and states of logic. Thus for one system to call another system "worse", other than on those criteria, is to use a circular argument.Third, universalizability cannot exist as a criteria as you have set it up. That is you seem to be ignoring that you are picking and choosing what counts as a universal rule through subjective definitions.The first two wholly refute your position and impede your ability to move further, the third does in a conditional sense. You could fix it, but with the first two points in place there really seems no point. However I will go on to show why the third is problematic in a conditional sense... Your prime example, moral proscriptions against homosexuality, do apply to everyone and I was sad to see you not address my point within your latest reply.Once again, the rule is that everyone must refrain from sex which is nonprocreative (or potentially nonprocreative). How is that not universal? That it impacts one group more than another because one group has more tendency to do such a thing does not make the rule less universalizable, only that in its universal application some may feel the impact of that rule more than others.This would be the true even if the rule was not about nonprocreative sex and strictly limited to homosexual sex. It is universal in that it applies to all. That one group feels its impact to a greater extent does not make it less universalizable. You ended up moving into legality, and I want us to avoid that completely. Discussions of morality or moral systems are entirely separate from political/legal discussions.As far as morality goes, since all proscriptive moral systems are based on subjective tastes (at least one premise), there is no reason why they cannot effect issues that do not effect others.Suicide, at least by a person that has no friends or family, would definitely not affect others, and yet an individual may not commit suicide due to a moral rule that it is not right. Others might also appeal to suicide contemplators not to do so based on such moral rules.Just because YOU don't feel that such rules are necessary does not mean there is a validity in judging other systems as lesser because they contain such rules. They are merely different and not preferred by you. Others might find them appealing and they could be just as right.I also wish you had addressed my examples, most especially vegetarian rules. Are vegetarians "wrong"? Yes there are societies that function/have functioned without any moral systems in the meaning of "moral" that we commonly use today which is a proscriptive moral system. They did not conceive of right/wrong or good/evil as we do today.I am also under the impression that you are advocating a proscriptive system. Not only the use of one to guide behavior, but with the capability of judging other systems. Your argument was purely semantic hair-splitting. What you call "club rules" are moral systems.You are correct in pointing out that moral systems (AKA club rules) cannot logically be imposed on members that have not accepted the system. That is because moral systems are subjective and so only applicable to subjective members. That is the position of a relativist.Only an absolutist can argue that moral systems exist in an objective sense, can be detected by humans, and thus can be applied to everyone. I have yet to see any absolutist make their case, particularly the second point. I have to begin questioning whether you have read the Bible. It is quite clear that the proscriptions were for Jews and later Xians and later still Muslims. In no case did they demand that other faiths or societies adhere to those values.Any system in heavy competition were viewed as threats and so open to elimination, including outright genocide, but otherwise the Bible is clear where and how the rules apply... including how to interact with others who live outside the system.They do believe these are objective statements by the one and only TRUE GOD, and so the only absolute and true moral rules (or rule as I have argued), but they recognize that others may not recognize this truth.There are even examples in the Bible of God allowing people to slip away and practice their own systems of belief, deriding them for following a wrong path and so losing his protection. And really that seems to be the key, if you want his protection, you need to be part of his club, and that means following his rules.The legal issues we are facing today is a result of most people, including atheists, believing that laws must come from morality, and that moral systems are real and can be judged. Thus we have struggle over which morality the gov't should reflect. Again you seem to be arguing legal vs moral systems. Yes, in the case of moral systems pointing out that A's moral rules are not acceptable to B is not a valid argument against A's system. That is disappointing because I thought I had made it quite clear. In fact just looking at the above sentence makes me squirm (as a strict logician).To say that a moral system can be judged "useful" is to say that you have a moral system regarding moral systems. It is a teleological one and utilitarian at that. That is circular in that you are assuming all of your positions are true. They are not.To say that "usefulness" is based on degree of applicability is even more astounding to me. What moral system is capable of being applied to all? I have already shown how systems develop and they are group and individual specific.Indeed I am curious what rules you feel are applicable to all morally? I honestly can't think of one. Great then maybe I have a foothold. Your assumptions that:1) moral systems can contain no subjective premise,2) that they can have their moral worth be judged by an objective teleological standard, and...3) that applicability to all is objectively possible,have no bearing on reality.I am not asking you to just take my word for it because I have quite a bit of education and time invested in researching this topic. However, based on the above, I am telling you that I have set out some serious objective (logic based) challenges which you have not met, and if you do not see them then it is not simply an issue of agreeing to disagree.I suppose it could be that I am not writing clearly enough, but I doubt it as Ihave written these things before and been understood. It appears more likely you are not investing the time necessary to understand the arguments I am making and stick with logic to understand how they impact your position. Or maybe you just don't want to see it?In no uncertain terms, your position is not logically tenable. Proscriptive morals require an evaluative premise and that is always subjective in nature. Thus proscriptive moral systems are by nature not required to be, nor expected to be applicable to all.Only if one believes in Gods, whose subjective opinions are considered objective for anything they have created or protect, and further argue that these evaluations can be clearly known by humans, can one begin to discuss an objective comparison of the "rightness" of another moral system.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Something is starting to happen here which I do not like. I am loathe to accuse someone of conveniently switching a position, but that is what I am feeling is happening here. It is either that, or you are using terminology haphazardly and so creating a miscommunication.I will assume the latter. Let's start be redefining things...A proscriptive moral system is any system which produces labels such as right/wrong, good/bad, good/evil, etc etc. It is a system designed to guide the action of actors through proscriptive means.A descriptive moral system produces labels such as just/unjust, hedonistic/ascetic, worldly/pious, etc etc. It is a system designed to describe the actor's moral character so as to understand what kind of individual (s)he is and what they are likely to do in a given situation. It offers guidance to an actor only by allowing the actor to understand the nature of a choice they are facing. Neither option is more right than another though one may say in general that the virtues are preferable, more likely to succeed as a habit, than the vices. Indeed many actions contain a mix of virtues and vices in context and so never easily viewed as a statement of "do this" or "don't do that".You say you are not arguing for a proscriptive system, and while it may be that you are not arguing for a particular proscriptive system, you do seem to be saying that proscriptive systems are the BASIS for human interaction... and that means you are advocating proscriptive systems. You are granting them greater credibility than they actually have. This is what I have been fighting. I want to point out that your first post on this, and most following posts, and indeed why I was drawn into ths debate was your subthread title: "real morality based on reason, logic and universalizability".If your argument is that real morality is not based on reason, logic, and universalizability, that choice of title was a bit odd. Can you explain the apparent discrepency? Without question that flavored my reading of your arguments. This statement is what made me think you are haphazardly using definitions. Your initial quote was about proscriptive moral systems being used by everyone, and their role as a basis for human interaction. Now here you say that they are more likely to be developed by people not tied up by some proscriptive system? This makes no sense.Perhaps the mistake you are making is reading proscriptive as "a priori assumed true". Thus, and this could be true, certain theists are hindered in creating or supporting other proscriptibe systems ("rational behavior and the ethics and morality that can be logically derived from first principles and the rule of universality") because they have an a priori belief that their's is the only truth.In any case, I think you need to make you position more clear. If there is a miscommunication going on regarding the requirement of a subjective premise, I posit that the mistake has to be on your end. These three comments:1) real morality based on reason, logic and universalizability2) rational behavior and the ethics and morality that can be logically derived from first principles and the rule of universality3) Man is a social animal, and morality is the basis for his interaction with other people.and your avid defense of "universalizability" as a concept, combine to form a pretty clear argument for morality as a necessity in general, and proscriptive systems as the only moral systems in specific.Certainly #3 is patenty untrue for descriptive moral systems (they cannot guide interaction so cannot be the basis of interaction), and as I have argued untrue about real life as it pertains to proscriptive moral systems... we don't need them to get along. This also supports my view that you are misusing terminology. You have clearly been arguing that moral systems must be universal, or that they can be measured by degree of universalizability. Now you are damning proscriptive systems as unable to be applicable universally? That's my line. This makes no sense. How can you claim that no system can be universalizable (and so all are faulty), and then say yoy think they can be compared?There really is a huge distance between my position and yours. Mine is not just that I don't think you can compare systems and work for better ones. Mine is that they are inherently incomparable as they are wholly subjective and in the end NOT the basis of human interaction at all. How you can make a subjective and immaterial system "better" is not exactly a practical concern.If you think that a "better" moral system (which guides action) can be had, then you are supporting proscriptive moral systems. At that point all of my criticisms of your position hit home.I truly hope you understand this. I have liked several of your efforts on other topics, and am only trying to point out some rather large holes in this one. It is essentially fatally flawed. The fact that you keep shrugging my comments off as a slight difference with your position is only telling that there is some large measure of miscommunication occuring.

Well that discussion certainly helped things along. Yes there was a communication mixup and yes it was your fault. While I wouldn't say using my definitions require "esoteric" level of knowledge, it does involve at least a little study.To be honest "proscriptive" and "descriptive" are not set terms in moral philosophy, but I thought the use was obvious enough, only to find out they are not when a person (in this case you) are not clear on moral systems in general.You do need to educate yourself in this field. As an analogy you are making the equivalent mistakes here, as a person calling a fetus an "unborn baby" would be making in your abortion threads. It shows a distinct lack of understanding of what characteristics are being argued. We can run with that use of "proscriptive" if you want. But then all that will do is change what terms I am using to describe the problems you are making.In fact, let me redefine so that you keep what you were using.Under the new set of definitions...1) Moral Rule systems: systems which act to guide behavior through use of rules or laws which suggest what actors should or should not do.2) Moral Lesson systems: systems which act to characterize or describe an action given its context, or an actor given the context of habitual choice of action, but do not suggest what actors should or should not do.3) Proscriptive systems: moral rule systems which use a priori or assumed "correct" sources such that the rules are stated from authority, rather than from assessment of good/bad.4) Descriptive (or prescriptive) systems: moral rule systems which use appeals to assessments or measurements of good/bad qualities in order to generate rules.Now to be honest, I think you have made a semantic error in thinking there is any qualitative difference between proscriptive and descriptive systems. Your very example of "thou shalt not" does have an overt reference to good/bad. It is quite clearly stating coveting is bad, and not coveting is good. But that is yet a new error, and one which will only side track us from the original problem I was addressing. I was not hung up on the "real" part, it was simply your statements of logic, reason, and universalizability being used in morality as a basis at all. It was your words which were important, and I did understand the problem, even if I did not understand the definition of proscriptive you were using (which again to me seems a bit forced and artificial).Using the new definitions, the problem is that you are advocating moral Rule systems as somehow a basis for human action. That is that there can be some reason or logic as the basis for these rules, that is they are in some way objective, and further that universalizability is some criteria which is useful for evaluating rule systems. That statement is not only bigoted, it is wholly fallacious in a circular way. It seems to equate "immorality" with "being bad for one's health" as if that were true. A rule system can label eating pork as "immoral" with absolutely no regard to what the effects of eating pork has on onesself. A better example may be hindu reverence for not eating cows or killing rats, and buddhist refrainments from eating meat at all.As far as I know, no one has figured out why the mosaic laws had proscriptions that ended up labeling pig meat as bad. For all I know it was because cloven feet were considered a sign that the animal is some sort of demon.Rule systems need not look anything alike, and yet function perfectly well and be popular, due to internal consistency... or more importantly: taste. Here is the core of the problem and what I have been attacking the entire time (in addition to the idea that rule systems are the basis for human action).There are NO MORAL SYSTEMS (at least no moral RULE systems) which are driven by reason, logic, or universalizability. Indeed I still have no idea why you think universalizability is possible as a criteria. This was defeated as I have already stated, with refutations of Kant's moral system (and that was a long time ago).While all moral systems may use reason, logic, and some weak form of universalizability, all of them are inherently based on... which means their core necessary premises... are wholly illogical and unreasonable.Thus the basis of all moral rules systems are subjective opinion. In the case of proscriptive ones it may be the opinions of Gods, but that doesn't make them any less reasonable than the wholly unreasonable opinions YOU happen to have.I have to say I find it somewhat humorous that you'd even make a comment as to what makes a system more likely to be accepted by others, when you are in the minority and proscriptive moral systems have been sweeping the globe for millenia, and they continue to grow in popularity!In the end, all it seems to me that you have done, is state what kind of moral rule system appeals to you the best. From my vantage point there is nothing wrong with that, as long as your restrict your statements to that degree. But you did try to argue beyond that scope into some sort of bashing of proscriptive systems as if it were objective and something others actually agreed with (or should agree with you on).Hopefully, now you have a better appreciation for what I was saying, and where the problems are with your argument.In addition to the above points you can address, I want to challenge you to rethink your own moral philosophy. First of all you need to address the reality that not everyone uses and so no one needs rule systems to get along in the world. But moving beyond that, if you happen to like rule systems you need to understand that absolutely none of them... even descriptive ones that define good/bad... have any objective or logical basis.Thus, if you believe logic is a basis, give me one rule that is based in logic.I would also like an example of a universalizable rule, or a reason why "don't have sex with someone that is your same sex" is not universalizable. You have not made your case for this.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Not convinced of what? That there are other moral systems besides rule systems, or that in any rule system the founding premises will contain a subjective statement?I can't give suggestions unless I know what you are having issues with.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes, your post did help. Not to be taken in a sarcastic way, but it showed what problems you are having and so where the miscommunication lies. You are wrong, but believe me I can see where what I said looks a lot like 1. The first thing you have to realize is that there is a difference between meta-ethics and ethics.My meta-ethical position looks very close to 1, but it is not my ethical (moral) system. My moral system is like 2, but has a totally different base. You would be correct that I cannot argue against your moral system using my own (indeed that is what I am arguing), but I can argue against the validity of your moral system's meta ethical assumptions using a meta-ethical argument.Before I unpack this let me say I was not exactly satisfied with the description of normative morality. It was a bit ethnocentric itself with lines like... For a better, and certainly more concise, discussion, I would point to Wikipedia's entries on morality and ethics.From Ethics... Much of my criticisms were aimed at your assumptions, which as you see above are more metaethical in nature. For example you statement that all human interaction is guided by morality, is a metaethical conclusion. I am not assuming my moral system is correct in order to attack that assertion.Universalizability as a criteria is also a meta ethical assumption, which I have attacked from outside my ethical system... dealing with concrete logic of meta-ethics as it moves to create an ethical system. I would sort of dispute the language here, but it is fair enough given the following break down (where you will see my own system categorized as "normative")... Thus from the above you can see the two types of systems I was discussing and how things like the golden rule are not universal in concept, or acceptance. Some systems are not rules regarding action.Descriptive morality (using the new definitions we are now looking at) is something more subtle... There is definitely a difference between descriptive and value (or virtue) ethics. I suppose my own my be straddling between the two, but is less contextual than purely descriptive systems require. That is I have a view of how to define a virtue, and while the context of an action may make it "just" or "unjust", the context will not change my definition of virtue... though as a subjectivist I can see how some societies WILL define a virtue differently based on context.Hahahaha... as a subjectivist I am a mete-ethically opposed to absolutism and so often behave as a descriptive ethicist. Yet I do feel, personally, that virtue ethics fits my world view and so I champion it and explore it for myself. I don't go so far as to say others SHOULD adopt it, but I like it and find it more natural to work with.Wiki's Descriptive Ethics page manages to muddy the waters a bit as it seems to have a conflict with the main ethics page on the nature of value ethics. Here are the important points... That last sentence sets things back some. But not completely when one takes a look at the history of philosophy and where Virtue Ethics played a role, as well as how it has faded in use. As it fades it will look more like a descriptive system, that a normative one.Here are quotes from Wiki's Virtue Ethics page... I think the second sentence is more accurate than the first, but I won't challenge it. Actually I want to thank you as looking this stuff up has not only gotten me back into the "official" lingo associated with this stuff, but pointed me to Aristotle's virtue system. The Wiki entry discusses that as an example and I found it very helpful in contrasting it with mine as a form of solution to certain problems I was having. I was using a traditional version with virtue-vice with a "golden mean" reminder, but his contains vice-virtue-vice such that the golden mean is incorporated within the label range.But back to the issue at hand, we can see above where it began and Wiki mentions some nonwestern virtue systems as well, but what became of it is more telling... It was utilitarianism (a teleological system) and deontological systems which have risen through the 1800's and indeed seem to be cresting again, which push virtue systems from the public eye.My personal feeling is because those other systems give one the gratification of playing God and stating one's system is absolute, or SHOULD be followed.I hope you have seen from these quotes that your original classification, which held your system separate from religious dogma based systems, was not accurate at all. Both of them are normative "conduct" systems. The fact that they have certain a priori meta ethical beliefs you do not share, does not make them less the same.My position is that all normative systems fail as "true", though they may have "use", but even that cannot be appealed to as being "better". The only reason for telling others they "should" accept one's own system, or recognize it as objectively better, is an insecurity in one's position as a subjective entity. People want to believe they are capable of moral knowledge, and so construct fictional arguments to perpetuate that myth and so extend their comforting illusion.This is a meta-ethical argument against moral systems, and particularly the meta-ethical stance of absolutism and the ability to compare systems as "better" or "worse" in some objective fashion.If we want to discuss my personal enjoyment of the virtue system, how it is more natural (that is more fluid) to the human condition, or less part of the "self-delusion of righteousness in action" moral drama going on, we can discuss that, but we don't have to.In the end I think my points have been made. Human action is clearly not based on moral systems, neither is there a particular set of agreed upon, or "objective", standards regarding morality. Your system is normative and of the same type ("conduct") as those of religious moralists, which differ from those like mine which are "value" systems. Value systems will seem immoral or amoral to conduct systems, yet they do function.I hope my sticking with this has helped.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)