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Morality and Belief in God

Quag said:
Yes we have, If you want to claim it is obejcigve you must show it to be objective lacking that all we have to go on is what I said leaving us with subjective.
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This dance has been danced... You believe that your "evidence" is solid fool-proof evidence, but your "evidence" of different people believing different things etc. etc. is NOT a positive supporter of subjectiveness in ANY way whatsoever... At best, your "evidence" that I have put into red colored text supports the notion that people have free will. It has no effect whatsoever on whether morality is, in and of itself, subjective or objective. Again, if you can't set aside your misguided stubbornness, and concede to this fact that I have put into green colored text, so we both can start discussing the ontology of morality on factual common ground, then there's nowhere for this particular discussion between us to go.

Quag said:
I dont see anything other than unproven claims. but lets look at post #300
#2 should read "Volition CAN supersede such behavioral inclinations/disinclinations (instincts).
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I think you may have a point here... "can supersede" might be more accurate language than "supersedes". However, I would argue that either wording of the language would still lead to the #3 conclusion that agency is involved. I think the only way #2 could be defeated is if it could be argued that either mankind does not have free will or if instinct somehow supersedes volition. Neither has been done, so I think #2 stands (and leads to #3) no matter what specific wording is used.

Quag said:
#3 as agency is defined by you in post#555 is just a repetition of #2
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This is quibbling over formatting of the argument and not the argument itself, so I think this can safely be dismissed.

Quag said:
#5 is just repeating #4
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Not true... #5 is tying in the conclusion of #3 with the fact presented in #4 to conclude that mankind are agents who practice morality (moral agents).

Quag said:
#6 is ambiguous because what can help one can harm another/oneself and vice versa
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Irrelevant. #6 is merely defining what makes an issue a moral issue. The epistemology behind the rightness/wrongness/helpfulness/harmfulness is completely irrelevant to defining what makes something a "moral issue". Your objection here doesn't affect the argument in any way.

Quag said:
#7 Why?
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If #5 is true (that mankind are moral agents), and #6 is true (that moral issues are those actions which have the potential to help or harm others or ourselves), then #7 logically follows (that Hamlet's question is a moral question with a moral answer). Suicide fits the definition of "moral issues" in point #6, and point #5 concluded that mankind are moral agents, therefore it follows that suicide is a moral issue with a moral answer.

Quag said:
#8 Why is it universal and objective?
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Nothing instinctively strives for death... everything instinctively strives for life... look at the very nature all around you...

Quag said:
#9 a) I do not consider suicide as the appropriate term for sacrificing your life for another.
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Self sacrifice is not part of Hamlet's Question, so this can safely be dismissed as a non-sequitur, and possibly a red herring. Plus, I have already addressed that your example of "sacrificing yourself for another" falls under volition, which is point #2 of the argument.

Quag said:
b) "the very nature of all living things, which is self-preservation." This is a new claim or at least new terms used in the argument. Now are you claiming the very nature of all living things is instinct and are you claiming self preservation is instinct?
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Self preservation is "the very nature of all living things", and happens to be one of many examples of instinct. The claim about self preservation was claimed in #8... #9 is claiming that suicide contradicts self preservation.

Quag said:
#10 Only #7-9 are not given you must prove them and you havent
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#7 follows from #5 and #6, so #7 is established. #8 is supported by biological science (the fact that all living things strive to live), and #9 establishes that suicide is not in accordance with #8, so #10 follows from #7 - #9, given their truth. If you object to #8, we could dive deeper into the science behind #8, but the argument itself logically follows if the premises are true.
 
Quag said:
Ill take that as you are basing your claim on belief and cannot prove it to be true at all.
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Ill take that response as you basing your claims on belief and being unable to prove them to be true at all.

My question to you about you being a brain in a vat or a body in the Matrix was meant to clearly expose the hypocrisy behind your "I need proof; I base my beliefs on facts" position that you regularly take with me. You ask me for "solid proof" in order to believe my claims, yet you yourself believe in things that you have no "solid proof" for... This is why philosophy is important and can't just be dismissed as "useless blind gobbly-gook"...

Quag said:
Sure the instinct of self preservation can overcome the instinct to protect ones family or the instinct to protect ones family can overcome the instinct of self preservation.
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Okay... But it still doesn't matter whether it's one instinct or twenty instincts... volition will supersede.

Quag said:
I could say the same about you.
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I understand, and have properly looked at and mulled over, the argument; I was one of the two crafters of it... Are there things wrong with it that I am overlooking? Maybe... but they'd have to be brought to my attention or I'd have to find them through self-review.

Quag said:
You are trying to make a black and white issue out of a very complex issue. The same thing happened when you asked me for a specific moral you would show is objectively true. When I chose homosexuality you refused to answer because it was not clear enough.
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No, I'm not. I'm simply following where logic takes me.

And no, I asked you that question to verify that you were once again going down the rabbit hole of epistemology, which you were, so I had no interest in doing that. I also did address your question directly, though not in the way you were hoping that I would. You wanted to trap me into your claim of "people hold differing views on it, therefore all morality is subjective" mindset, and I simply wasn't interested in discussing that for the five hundredth time because your conclusion of subjectiveness doesn't in the slightest logically follow from that fact. Also, there are numerous other examples that are "crystal clear" right/wrong, but you refuse to see those. All it takes is for one thing to be crystal clear in order to establish the existence of objectiveness. The rest is all epistemology, which comes secondary to ontology.
 
Angel said:
We're on the same glorious page, yes.

Good point. The conversation is already way over their heads. Drowning 'em won't convince 'em.
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Yup... I mean, we could move on, but we both seemingly agree that it does logically connect us to God's existence in terms of "we are God's creation, so we are God's property" ... and if our current argument isn't even being understood, then yes, drowning them in further argumentation would probably be a fruitless endeavor. They would have to first understand and accept this current argument before they could move on into deeper argumentation.
 
devildavid said:
Self preservation is not purely instinctual either.
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It doesn't have to be "purely" instinctual; it simply needs to be instinctual, and it clearly is if you look at everything around you.

devildavid said:
What is instinctual is the initial reaction we have to potential danger/pain. Our actions involve an evaluation of the situation and we judge if action is needed or not. The initial reactions are purely instinctual; we do not choose to react. We somewhat choose what action to take after the initial instinctual reaction.
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All that to still conclude that our instinct is self preservation, and that the instinctual actions based off of our self preservation instinct are done with the intent to preserve ourselves.
 
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gfm7175 said:
It doesn't have to be "purely" instinctual; it simply needs to be instinctual, and it clearly is if you look at everything around you.


All that to still conclude that our instinct is self preservation, and that the instinctual actions based off of our self preservation instinct are done with the intent to preserve ourselves.
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Bad cop to good cop: your patience is inspirational.

Our moral relativists don't know what hit them. The imp of contrarianism is working overtime.

Peace.
 
Angel said:
Bad cop to good cop: your patience is inspirational.

Our moral relativists don't know what hit them. The imp of contrarianism is working overtime.

Peace.
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Yes, a good chunk of this disagreement seems to just be for the sake of being contrarian, unfortunately...
 
gfm7175 said:
It doesn't have to be "purely" instinctual; it simply needs to be instinctual, and it clearly is if you look at everything around you.


All that to still conclude that our instinct is self preservation, and that the instinctual actions based off of our self preservation instinct are done with the intent to preserve ourselves.
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We don't choose our instinctive reaction. They have nothing to do with concepts like free will or morality. There is no intent to instinct. It is simply the net result of blind evolutionary processes. And it is but one element of why any life form or species continues to survive as a species. Why have native populations been decimated if they have the same instinct to survive? Did some force intend that? No, that isn't how it works.
 
gfm7175 said:
Yes, a good chunk of this disagreement seems to just be for the sake of being contrarian, unfortunately...
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gfm7175 said:
Yes, a good chunk of this disagreement seems to just be for the sake of being contrarian, unfortunately...
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I mean, first it was resistance to acknowledging that moral issues exist at all; then it was resistance to life as a natural good, which biological science itself establishes in its instinct theory; then it was resistance to use of the word "good" on the grounds that a word out of context is subjective, flying in the face of linguistics; then it was resistance to objective evaluations (the watch, Ted Williams, etc.) though such evaluations are made and depended on all the time and though criteria were presented to distinguish these from subjective opinion; and when these objections were shown to be groundless it was resistance for the sake of resistance -- the perennial Nope, Uh-uh, You're wrong and that's all there is to it, etc.

Our beloved opponents seem constitutionally incapable of ceding an argument when it is lost, of acknowledging a strong argument when they encounter one. It's all "No, no, a thousand times No, whatever you say, No!"
 
gfm7175 said:
Yup... I mean, we could move on, but we both seemingly agree that it does logically connect us to God's existence in terms of "we are God's creation, so we are God's property" ... and if our current argument isn't even being understood, then yes, drowning them in further argumentation would probably be a fruitless endeavor. They would have to first understand and accept this current argument before they could move on into deeper argumentation.
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God has not been established as anything more than a human created concept. So no, we aren't gods property or nature's property or property at all. And natural events are not guided by anything.

Arguments do not describe reality.
 
devildavid said:
God has not been established as anything more than a human created concept. So no, we aren't gods property or nature's property or property at all. And natural events are not guided by anything.

Arguments do not describe reality.
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But your unsupported assertions do, yes?
 
Angel said:
I mean, first it was resistance to acknowledging that moral issues exist at all; then it was resistance to life as a natural good, which biological science itself establishes in its instinct theory; then it was resistance to use of the word "good" on the grounds that a word out of context is subjective, flying in the face of linguistics; then it was resistance to objective evaluations (the watch, Ted Williams, etc.) though such evaluations are made and depended on all the time and though criteria were presented to distinguish these from subjective opinion; and when these objections were shown to be groundless it was resistance for the sake of resistance -- the perennial Nope, Uh-uh, You're wrong and that's all there is to it, etc.

Our beloved opponents seem constitutionally incapable of ceding an argument when it is lost, of acknowledging a strong argument when they encounter one. It's all "No, no, a thousand times No, whatever you say, No!"
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You can admit your failure any time you want. Your new game of "we've won" is not any more valid than all the other failed arguments you presented. You need to go find your rutabaga.
 
Angel said:
But your unsupported assertions do, yes?
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My assertion that physical things exist? It's rutabaga time again. It is not my assertion that makes it so, it is the rutabaga itself.
 
devildavid said:
My assertion that physical things exist? It's rutabaga time again. It is not my assertion that makes it so, it is the rutabaga itself.
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Why do you trust the reliability of your sensory experience as objective truth but doubt the reliability of your moral experience as objective truth?
 
devildavid said:
My assertion that physical things exist? It's rutabaga time again. It is not my assertion that makes it so, it is the rutabaga itself.
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The rutabaga is a mental construction. Mind is fundamental. Your hardline materialism has been exploded by both philosophical empiricism and quantum science.

These bold assertions of physicalism on your part ring ridiculous.
 
Angel said:
The rutabaga is a mental construction. Mind is fundamental. Your hardline materialism has been exploded by both philosophical empiricism and quantum science.

These bold assertions of physicalism on your part ring ridiculous.
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I think I figured out the point long ago. Mysticism and spirituality are more true and real than the physical reality most of us agree exists. Pretty simple.

Cue Across the Universe. Damn beautiful song, that.
 
<alt>doxygen said:
I think I figured out the point long ago. Mysticism and spirituality are more true and real than the physical reality most of us agree exists. Pretty simple.

Cue Across the Universe. Damn beautiful song, that.
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I don't know about mysticism and spiritualism, but idealism is certainly true.
 
Angel said:
I don't know about mysticism and spiritualism, but idealism is certainly true.
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Idealism is metaphysical as well. Thanks for clearing up the terms.

The point I was making is that these are debates that pit the ways of knowing that flow from our recognized, named senses or instruments developed to enhance those senses against other ways of knowing that are outside that realm. Of course the materialist take is that those "other" modalities don't exist or cannot be considered because they can't be reproduced in a lab or some such place via the scientific method.

"Prying open my Third Eye..."
 
<alt>doxygen said:
Idealism is metaphysical as well. Thanks for clearing up the terms.

The point I was making is that these are debates that pit the ways of knowing that flow from our recognized, named senses or instruments developed to enhance those senses against other ways of knowing that are outside that realm. Of course the materialist take is that those "other" modalities don't exist or cannot be considered because they can't be reproduced in a lab or some such place via the scientific method.

"Prying open my Third Eye..."
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And the point I was making is that knowing is fundamentally experiential and that experience is fundamentally mental.
Idealism is metaphysical only from the physicalist perspective, but the physicalist perspective is itself generated by experience and experience by mind and mind is the fundamental reality in idealism.
 
Angel said:
And the point I was making is that knowing is fundamentally experiential and that experience is fundamentally mental.
Idealism is metaphysical only from the physicalist perspective, but the physicalist perspective is itself generated by experience and experience by mind and mind is the fundamental reality in idealism.
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I understand where you are coming from, even though I don't completely agree. This definition/understanding of Idealism seems to differ from yours. Perhaps it's just "physicalist". Clarify if you like.

Idealism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the philosophical notion of idealism. For the ethical principle, see Ideal (ethics). For other uses, see Idealism (disambiguation).
In philosophy, idealism is the group of metaphysical philosophies that assert that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing. In contrast to materialism, idealism asserts the primacy of consciousness as the origin and prerequisite of material phenomena. According to this view consciousness exists before and is the pre-condition of material existence. Consciousness creates and determines the material and not vice versa. Idealism believes consciousness and mind to be the origin of the material world and aims to explain the existing world according to these principles.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism

I don't disagree with most of what wrote there in a literal sense. The mind IS the thing at the root of both, but physicalism/materialism/empiricism to me refer to the realms of natural science and thus far, what we can prove in an objective* sense IS of those realms. Unlike many skeptics, I don't reject spirituality or idealism as ways of learning and understanding, but I see those as very personal and internal. Watching pure idealists debate pure empiricists with each trying to prove via logic that the other is absurd is to me absurd.

* Used as defined in Websters:
objective (əb-jĕkˈtĭv)►
adj. Of or having to do with a material object.
adj. Having actual existence or reality.
adj. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.
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Angel said:
And the point I was making is that knowing is fundamentally experiential and that experience is fundamentally mental.
Idealism is metaphysical only from the physicalist perspective, but the physicalist perspective is itself generated by experience and experience by mind and mind is the fundamental reality in idealism.
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Mental is fundamentally physical as it involves the physical brain and nervous system, without which there is no "mental" or "experiential", or "knowing". There is no such thing as "mind" other than what we call the total workings of the physical brain and nervous system. If you lacked these physical things it would be impossible for you to expound upon them in this forum and to claim that they were not responsible for your ability to make up a concept that attempts to argue them out of existence. It is quite ironic that you dismiss the physical which is the only thing you have that allows you to dismiss it. We'll expect you to return after death when you are a pure transcendent mind and explain it all to us then. In the meantime, you are as "trapped" in the physical as any of us.
 
gfm7175 said:
Why do you trust the reliability of your sensory experience as objective truth but doubt the reliability of your moral experience as objective truth?
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I trust the reliability of the ability of both of us to find a rutabaga. The rutabaga is objective truth, not my or your experience of it.
 
Angel said:
The rutabaga is a mental construction. Mind is fundamental. Your hardline materialism has been exploded by both philosophical empiricism and quantum science.

These bold assertions of physicalism on your part ring ridiculous.
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Who mentally constructed a physical rutabaga? You? Me? The guy down the street?

Why physically create shelter when it can be mentally constructed? Who knew life was so easy? Just think of it, and it will appear.
 
gfm7175 said:
Yup... I mean, we could move on, but we both seemingly agree that it does logically connect us to God's existence in terms of "we are God's creation, so we are God's property" ... and if our current argument isn't even being understood, then yes, drowning them in further argumentation would probably be a fruitless endeavor. They would have to first understand and accept this current argument before they could move on into deeper argumentation.
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so you believe slavery is good when your gods into it that's not objectively evil but its pretty ****ing evil to me
 
<alt>doxygen said:
I understand where you are coming from, even though I don't completely agree. This definition/understanding of Idealism seems to differ from yours. Perhaps it's just "physicalist". Clarify if you like.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism

I don't disagree with most of what wrote there in a literal sense. The mind IS the thing at the root of both, but physicalism/materialism/empiricism to me refer to the realms of natural science and thus far, what we can prove in an objective* sense IS of those realms. Unlike many skeptics, I don't reject spirituality or idealism as ways of learning and understanding, but I see those as very personal and internal. Watching pure idealists debate pure empiricists with each trying to prove via logic that the other is absurd is to me absurd.

* Used as defined in Websters:
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The Wiki account is from the orthodox physicalist perspective, yes. If idealism were orthodoxy, then the Wiki article would instead refer to physicalism as "the group of metapsychical philosophies that assert that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally material, materially constructed, or otherwise material."

And this is how far the misunderstanding of orthodoxy today has progressed. You write, quite understandably given the power of orthodoxy, "watching pure idealists debate pure empiricists" -- whereas the truth is, or the fact is, that the only pure empiricism is idealism. Idealism is empiricism that hasn't forgotten what it's about.
 
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