• Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    but my question is why we should generalize a maxim to become a universal law.

    Think of a person with locked-in syndrome. He suffers from being in such a condition greatly. He wishes to die desperately. Isn't it right to assist him to die? Is it right to keep him in such a condition? Accepting that we only can find the rightness of a maxim by generalizing it to become a universal law has this danger of putting people in an undesirable and unfair situation such as people with locked-in syndrome.     — MoK

    Universal law doesn't mean some legislative codes or official declaration.  It means the way moral good and bad is judged.   It is judged by our practical reasoning on the actions, decisions on the moral situations.

    In Kant, reason is an objective and universal way of thinking.   Everyone on the planet says 1+1=2 (by analytic reason), and killing is morally bad (by practical reason).  This is what Kant means by universal and objective.

    Moral good is not something God tells you what to do, and it is not an absolute concept existing somewhere in space, in Kant's view.

    OK there are some controversial cases in real world, where decisions and judgements could be controversial or contradictory such as your example of the locked-in man.  Even in that case, the judgement and decision on the situation are to be made from practical reasoning, so that the result is thought to be best for achieving moral good (not by God's instruction or the absolute moral Good as some folks seem to think).

    Moral good is not about what some folks feels different on certain situations. It is about the actions which have been performed, and decisions which have been made. It is not about the feelings. It is about the actions. In that sense moral judgements are reflective and analytical which are made via practical reasoning.

    You may feel about something totally different in moral judgements from the rest of the folks in the universe. That is not morality. That is just a psychological disposition or beliefs which can change through time and by rethinking. But when you performed a certain act on the moral situation, it will then be judged morally good or bad.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Never did I claim such a thing. — MoK
    I thought you did. Maybe it was someone else. My sincere apologies for mistaking your religious stance. So are you a Christian?

    Different substances are different in their essences. — MoK
    Of course, they would be different in some ways. What would be the difference be? Or different essences, if you prefer?
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Ok, I will read them when I have time. — MoK

    :ok: :wink:
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    I am wondering what is the argument for objective morality. As I mentioned Kant's argument is false. Hume's argument is based on specific feelings that are not common between human beings. — MoK

    Please read the SEP article on Kant's Moral Philosophy. Here is an article about Hume's Morality as well. And this is Kant vs. Hume on Morality.

    After your reading, please let us know the reason why you think they are false. You cannot say they are false, if you don't know what they are.
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    From a genetic point of view humans are just a baby-making (gene dispersal) engine. — Harry Hindu
    A genetic point of view seems to have a peculiarly limited idea of humans.

    , could we then say AI (the robot) is intelligent? — Harry Hindu
    Please define intelligence.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Well, God can teach us the truth so we can become Omniscient if knowledge is bound. — MoK
    You claimed you are an atheist. If God doesn't exist, how could he teach you to become omniscient?

    I think two entities with the same sort of substance cannot occupy the same location. Therefore, two Omnipresent entities must have different substances. — MoK
    What would the different substances be in their nature?
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    It may be shown after great errors that AI is not as intelligent as human beings, as it is too robotic and concrete. — Jack Cummins

    :ok: :sparkle: From computer programming point of view, AI is just an overrated search engine.
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    The biggest problem is the creation of consciousness itself, which may defy the building of a brain and nervous system, as well as body parts. Without this, the humans fabricated artificially are likely to be like Madam Tussard models with mechanical voices and movements, even simulated thought. Interior consciousness is likely to be lacking, or substance. It comes down to the creation of nature itself and a probable inability to create the spark of life inherent in nature and consciousness. — Jack Cummins

    :ok: :up:
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Well, that is not an argument in favor of objective morality. The majority of the human population feels the same way in the same situations. But there is a minority that enjoys from inflicting pain on others. Therefore, the feeling cannot be a base or fact for objective morality. — MoK

    The universal and objective morality as a human nature is the principle of Ethics. It doesn't mean 100% human beings understand and practice the moral law.

    There would be real life cases where some of the minority folks' judgements and understandings get impaired due to various reasons. And there will always be some minority folks going against the human nature and the normativity also for various reasons.

    The principle cannot do anything against them apart from saying that they are morally wrong. However, the principle still stands as the normativity of morality.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    I already mentioned the problem within Kant's argument, first formulation. I am currently reading this article on Hume's argument on the topic. The article is however very long. Could you summarize Hume's argument? — MoK

    Sure. It is rather simple. When we see a fellow human being suffering, we want to offer help to save the folk if we can. It is out of our sympathy in our emotion which we share with all the human beings in the world.

    When we see the fellow human being saved from our help, we feel moral good, that we have done something good for other human beings. It is the nature of our mind which are loaded with these sharable emotions called sympathy, Hume says.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    What is the argument for that? — MoK

    The argument is based on the logical implication from the Ethics and Practical Reasoning by Kant, and the concept of Sympathy of Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    By whom? A person who is hungry and steals food does not think so. And where is the argument for that? — MoK

    The universal moral law will say stealing is wrong. The hungry folk should have asked for some food explaining his / her situation from those around him. Without doubt some charitable folks out of sympathy would have offered the hungry fellow man with hot food and drinks.

    Under the universal and objective moral law which is residing in all human reasoning, stealing is morally wrong.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Accepting stealing as permissible negates the right of having a property, not the ability to have a property. A person could be politically, socially, ... strong and steal from others and keep it as his/her property. — MoK

    Stealing is universally regarded as morally wrong. No one in the world would think stealing is morally right regardless the property were personally or publicly owned. Stealing shouldn't be permitted in any circumstances by universal law.
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    As for AI, sentience and philosophy, the issue is that without sentience AI does not have life experiences. As it is, it doesn't have parents, self-image and sexuality. It does not have reflective consciousness, thereby, it is not able to attain wisdom. — Jack Cummins

    Recently I bought a few items from some of the online shops, and the items were described by A.I. generated texts. When the items arrived, I found out the most of the descriptions by the AI were wrong. It was just meaningless praise of the goods without accuracy in detail and functionality.

    I had to return the 2 items out of 3 for full refund. I asked the online sellers not to use the AI generated descriptions for their items for sale.
  • Currently Reading
    Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death: Walter Pater and Post-Hegelianism by Giles Whitely (Author)
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Therefore, saying that "there could be no personal property" does not follow hence his argument fails. — MoK

    It is not about personal property. It is about the action i.e. stealing.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Why don't you think Kant is right in this instance? — Corvus

    Because I think that morality cannot be objective.     — MoK
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    If someone talks badly to other folks about you with false accusations and lies about you for some egotistic motives for him. Would you not reason and judge it is morally wrong? — Corvus

    From my perspective, he did something evil and morally wrong. He may think otherwise.     — MoK
    Obviously his moral sense doesn't exist. Why should you care his thoughts make sense?

    Could you give a reason why an action is universally and objectively wrong? — MoK
  • On religion and suffering
    As mentioned in an earlier comment, there is an unspoken convention that this is not something that can be considered in the secular context, as by definition, secular culture can't accomodate it. — Wayfarer

    When the meta religious thinkers have absolutely no experience on the practical side of the religion, or exclude the secular aspect of the religion, it is doubtful the meta religious reasoning could arrive at the knowledge they supposed to arrive.
  • On religion and suffering
    How? I argue, take flame and put your finger in it. What does this experience "tell" you? It issues forth an injuction NOT to do this, and injunction that is beyond law and duty conceived in a language to govern the consenting, or somethign like that. It is something as certain as logic itself. — Astrophel

    That doesn't sound like the work of Ethics. It would more sound like the work of inductive reasoning. You try something, if it hurts, you learn not to do it i.e. trial and error.

    Ethics don't tell about these things. Ethics are the code of conducts between human beings while living on the earth i.e. Ethics will tell you what is morally good things to do, and what are not. If you do moral wrongs, then you will be judged as a morally corrupted by the other folks. If you do morally good things to others, then they will judge you a morally good guy.

    If you lived in a desert by yourself with no one around you, Ethics wouldn't apply to you. Because you have no one to interact with. Ethics emerges when you do things to others, and others do things to you. It is a value judgements on the actions of folks to other folks in folks mind. Good and bad in Ethics don't exist in the universe.

    In other words, if you tortured a bowlful of sands for no reason, or if you strangled a scabby cactus, there is no morality arising in these actions. Morality only matters when you are dealing with people on the way how you treated them, and how they treated you.

    I agree religion has some sayings on Ethics and Morality such as in the form of the 10 commandment in the Bible, which still forms the underlying foundation of morality in modern times. But I am still not convinced if it could tell much about the world around us. Well they do, but all in their own terms and doctrines, which are not logical and not rational way.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    God can make us Omniscient. Whether we can become Omnipresent is however the subject of discussion. — MoK
    Interesting claim indeed. How could we become omnipresent? And you believe God can make us Omniscient? What are your reasoning for the possibility? How could it be done?

    Whether two different Omnipresent entities can distinguish themselves from one another knowing that they both exit everywhere is the subject of discussion and contemplation (I am currently thinking about this). — MoK
    Yes, I would be interested to know about your ideas on that.

    That is a problem since there is no way to distinguish two entities if they are both Omnipresent. — MoK
    Well if the omnipresent beings are not the space and time entities, then they won't need separate space and time, would they? Therefore it would depend on the fact whether the omnipresent beings are spacetime entities or not. If not, what would be the nature of their existence?
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    He either resurrected Himself or God did it. How could He resurrect Himself if He is dead? Therefore, it must be God who resurrected Jesus. — MoK

    Sounds reasonable. If God can resurrect a dead man, he could also make him a junior God. Make sense?
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    I don't think so when there is no verse from the Bible to justify this. — MoK

    But do you see the verse in the Bible that Jesus didn't become God after the resurrection and ascended to Heaven?

    Ok, let's suppose he was not a God. How do you explain the resurrection and ascending to Heaven? Can ordinary blokes do that?

    To resurrect from death, would you not need some assistance from the real God, and become some kind semi God or another God? To ascend to Heaven without being God, would you not need some sort of rocket device such as the SpaceX?

    But it seems highly unlikely they had rocket device available to ascend to Heaven at the time. There must have been some sort of divine intervention, if it really happened. Would you not agree?
  • On religion and suffering
    To grasp religion, one has to do this. For religion is a metaphysical question of our existence. One has to ask seriously about metaphysics, and what it is. THEN the value dimension looms large. The easing of human suffering is an issue in ethics (it should be eased). And in religion ,it is about metaethics. Why is it metaethics? Because the world is a meta-world at this level of inquiry. — Astrophel

    I am not sure if religion would have its ground for its existential justification without the concepts of afterlife, promise of savior from human sufferings, good fortunes, good health, possibility of the miracles and protection from God against the uncertain world. Like it or not, those are the elements of the attractions offered to the followers of religion in the mundane world, whatever religion it might be.

    The OP title seems to be implying religion has close connection with human sufferings. No one would have taken the implication for intensifying, but wouldn't it be easing?

    If it were not, then what would be the point of religion? For understanding the universe, we have metaphysics, epistemology, logic and semantics. Could religion offer better in understanding the universe? I am not sure.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    The Bible says that He resurrected and ascended to Heaven. I am not aware of any verse that says He became God. — MoK

    Me neither. However, it seems perfectly plausible to make inference that he could only have resurrected and ascended to Heaven, because he became God after the resurrection.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    I already mentioned that the Bible is not a reliable source for morality. You mentioned Ten Commandments and I mentioned Numbers 31:17-18. — MoK
    I am not saying the Bible is the reliable source for morality. I am saying that many current morality is based on the Bible.

    I have already defined moral facts in OP. How can we say that an act is right or wrong if we cannot derive the rightness or wrongness of it from a set of facts? — MoK
    I did read the OP again. Your just wrote God must know all moral facts. That is not a definition. How can God know all moral facts, if it doesn't exist? Can you give some examples of moral facts?

    I don't think that Kant is right in this instance. — MoK
    Why don't you think Kant is right in this instance? If someone talks badly to other folks about you with false accusations and lies about you for some egotistic motives for him. Would you not reason and judge it is morally wrong?

    Anyone in the world would judge the case as morally wrong because we all have practical reason which is universal and objective according to Kant. But you don't agree with Kant. Why don't you agree with his theory? Would you need moral fact to judge that is morally wrong?
  • Skepticism as the first principle of philosophy
    ↪Count Timothy von Icarus

    Blind scepticism in extremity is pointless. However as a methodology for coming to more infallible knowledge, reasonable scepticism demanding for the reasons, evidences and grounds from the claims made by science, math and religion is critically important and essenttial in philosophical debates and analysis.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    How do you know that He became God after the resurrection? — MoK

    Is it not what the Bible says? That is one of the miracles what gives the ground for Christianity as a religion.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    How could morality be objective when there is no fact/right premise that we can use to conclude whether an act is right or wrong? — MoK

    It is the moral code still the base of the most moral right or wrong. You need to read the 10 commandments, and reflect on the many moral rights and wrong now. They are all related, and originated from the code.

    I have not heard of Moral Facts before, hence I am not sure what it is, and why its non existence is the reason for moral subjectivity. Maybe it doesn't exist, because it has never existed in the first place?

    And as Kant said, we know what moral good and bad are by simply reflecting on the human actions by our practical reasoning which is universal and objective.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Don't you see any contradiction in your conclusion? — MoK

    It is not a conclusion. It is an inference.
    It is perfectly reasonable inference, if you read any Hegel and knew about Dialectical Logic.

    From daily life, it can be also reasoned. Things don't stay as they are. All things change with time and events in the world.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Do you want me to give you an example of moral fact? How can I give you one when there is none? — MoK

    The point is not whether it exists or not. The point is it is nothing to do with Moral good and bad.
    Read some Kant. He says we all know what moral good and bad is from our practical reasoning which is universally objective. You don't need moral facts which seems a dubious word.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    So He was not God when He was human? — MoK
    Now you are saying that He resurrected and He was God. — MoK

    That is my inference.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Moral facts are required if morality is objective. — MoK

    You haven't answered what moral facts are. You just said moral facts are required. If you don't know what moral facts are, how can you say it is required?
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    What do you mean by making into God? — MoK

    Many folks believe he is God. He doesn't seem to have had been God when he was alive. He was just an ordinary bloke. But when he died on the cross, and resurrected, he became God.
    Ordinary folks don't resurrect after death. Only God can resurrect.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Cool. So we are on the same page. — MoK

    But was he not made into God when he resurrected after death?
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    What do you mean by moral codes? — MoK
    For example in the Bible, there are 10 commandments.
    In other religions, I am sure they have their own moral codes.

    I already defined moral facts in OP. By moral facts, I mean a set of facts that we can derive whether an act is right or wrong. — MoK
    The ancient folks derived the moral good and bad from the religious moral codes such as 10 commandments. But Kant said, that we have the practical reason we derive the moral good and bad from all actions of humans, which are universal and objective.

    Moral facts sounds not appropriate and has nothing to do with moral good or bad.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    How couldn't Jesus know that? He is God therefore omniscient. — MoK

    Jesus was not a God. No one in human body is God.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Yes, we do not have a common conscience on many things. We also have a common conscience on many other things. — MoK
    But we have common moral codes. That is what morality is about. Not conscience.

    How could you judge that an act is right or wrong if you don't have any moral facts? — MoK
    The moral codes give you the ground for moral judgements. What do you mean by moral facts?
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    I don't think so. I think that question refers to a state of being abandoned by God. — MoK

    We can only infer from the saying. It sounds like he himself didn't know. If he knew for sure, he wouldn't have asked. He would have made a statement.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    He said on the Cross: "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?". How could He be abandoned if He and God are one? — MoK

    The saying in the quote is not a statement. It is in the form of question. He is asking questions. There is no truth or falsity in the question at all. He is asking someone to give him the answers for his question. It would be only true or false, if he said, " My God, You forsaken me."
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