You are not a determinist by that definition. Because of the current understanding of quantum mechanics, the hard determinist position seems very hard to affirm. The best you can do is say that we may be mistaken about our conception of quantum mechanics, given how relatively new and weird it is, but this simply leaves possibility of determinism open.

To make clear though, believing determinism simply means indeterminism is true; it does imply you believe in the compatibility of free will with this indeterminist state or some libertarian conception of free will.

It doesn't look to me like it works as a description of morality in a general sense.
It doesn't explain the idea of moral progress. Or why people listen to unpopular moral reformers. Or why people even make judgments about morality. (if people truly believed that morality was relative, then they would believe that others couldn't be wrong- if morals are relative, then the others aren't wrong. They just hold different views that are right... from the others' perspective. If they accept that the others are right, then by why would they care what they think?). — anonymous66

As previously stated, I don't very much care for cultural relativism, though this is more because of the "cultural" part, as there are subcultures and radical individuals that the theory does not account for to be considered complete in my eyes, as well as other problems like viewing morality as purely social. Rather, it only works in the language of a sociologist, describing what groups of people consider good behavior. Since what I will say applies to the majority of nonobjective meta-ethical stances, I will stop referring to cultural relativism specifically and talk about these positions more generally.

First, none of nonobjective moral positions I am aware of state that everyone will accept the truth of their position. These positions can hold the majority of people will believe morality is objective. Second, compare morality to a similar concept in the study of value theory: aesthetics. There are a lot of groups of people who argue that aesthetic qualities are objective (in some sense of the word, "objective"), that a particular painting is objectively bad and that people ought to respond to it as bad. Beauty is a real objective property that certain objects possess. Now, there are people who dispute this notion; they claim that aesthetic values are ultimately subjective. They may say that, due to our shared nature as human beings, that we tend to find certain things pleasant, but ultimately what we get out of aesthetics is subjective. Certain people have certain tastes and that is all there is to it.

This does not stop these people from arguing over aesthetics, saying "that was a bad movie", arguing against paintings in their dorm room because they find these paintings ugly, commenting on how art affects people generally, and such. This also does not mean that whenever people see something they aesthetically disagree with, they do not shrug their shoulders and cease to care. They may, for whatever reason, try to actively or passively oppose certain artworks, particularly if the art is public in nature and they cannot avoid the art. Subjective aesthetics also does not mean that trends can change over time, that art once considered bad and unpopular becomes popular and even considered the new "normal."

The parallels to morality are obvious. The reason it is more acceptable to say aesthetics are subjective is that, at least in the present time, not as much rides on our conceptions of what is good art. However, a large amount of our lives revolves our personal morality and the moral system that is accepted by the larger society. Most people can't act like morality is subjective and take a live-and-let-live conception of morality because no matter what, people have to live under moral systems. How this world views morality, what it permits and what it allows, directly affects what we care deeply about. Moral progress can simply be viewed as moral change with general trends based on prior moral views. It should be no surprise that we see the progression from the past to the present as progress; this is not due to some continued march towards moral perfection, but rather us seeing the past historical events that chronologically lead up to the current state of affairs. Moral reformers may start the trends we call moral progress, but some (I would venture most) of what we call unpopular moral reformers simply were ignored by the larger population.

To repeat what Terrapin Station stated, you are claiming believing nonobjective moral stances necessitates not caring about morality discussions anymore. It is like expecting all nihilists to cease to perform all actions because they think their life has no objective meaning.

If we can conceive of p-zombies then consciousness isn't physical
We can conceive of p-zombies
Therefore, consciousness isn't physical — Michael

The second premise is not supported. To go down the same line of thought others have done in the thread (and at the risk of restating what has already been said), the premise is true if and only if physicalism is false.

P-zombies are potentially conceivable; in a sense, I do not see anything strikingly incoherent about the idea, but this may only be because we, as humans, do not understand the brain and the other physical forces that underlie consciousness. In other words, we may not be epistemologically justified in saying, "p-zombies are inconceivable," as this would require us to flat out illustrate physicalism, but we are not epistemologically justified to declare that, "p-zombies are concievable."

Saying, "p-zombies are convievable," is equal to saying "p-zombies are logically possible." Saying, "p-zombies are logically possible," is equivelant to saying, "it is logically possible to have two worlds, W1 and W2, that are exactly the same physically, but W1 has conscious beings and W2 has p-zombies." The last statement is true if and only if physicalism is false, for if physicalism were true, then it would not be logically possible to have W1 and W2. In this sense, the argument begs the question. There is nothing wrong with the form of the argument as stated (it's modus ponus), but to hold the second premise as true, we would have to assume the conclusion, and thus, we would be begging the question.

I haven't taken the time to study her, but her reputation is terrible on philosophy forums, and I don't think she is (or ought to be) taken seriously in academia — Wayfarer

I have not read anything in terms of full tracts beyond an excerpt about her arguing against having to pay for public schools. All I can think about is how when discussing epistemological systems, every single short summary acts as if it is some cutting insight that we should base our epistemological systems and collection of knowledge on reason. Because, you know, no philosopher thought of that one before.

Whenever I went on Objectivist sites, I got this eerie feeling of Christian apologetics sites: very short and trite answers to complex issues, a religious zeal for its figureheads, and a bunch of links to buy things.

Also, good luck finding answers, cause we humans have only been trying since the dawn of our times.

I can imagine that, living in the world of political philosophy, you have to deal with a lot of people arguing for complete system overhaul. Marquez wants to emphasize a certain aspect of conservative philosophy, the epistemic uncertainty we face in decision making. This essay is mostly meant for an ongoing debate among political philosophers, particularly as an argument against philosophers who want to argue against democratic republics, free market economics, and private property, which I imagine can be quite common in some circles. Based on previous essays I read, most philosophy works are not monumental works like "Justice as Fairness" or "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", but are trying to argue and refine a position in order to make it stronger. I found the essay insightful, though I never read Burke, so maybe it is just treading old ground.

One is general and one is specific.

In general, I believe that people are too confident in their beliefs in light of the vast disagreement amongst completely capable and intelligent experts in a given field and underestimate the impact social environment has on their belief systems. As such, I hold a number of positions on various topics that I'm more likely than not, completely epistemologically unjustified in holding. Of course, I think most people are in the same boat as me, so it is more general to everyone and everything.

Specifically, I hold hard indeterminism to be true. I reject that free will exists and reject that free will is compatible with something being determined/completely random. I am agnostic about determinism being true specifically, but I find that irrelevant to the main point: our conception of free will and the basis for personal responsibility is in error. The reason this is weak is based in the fact that I find compatibilism (free will and determinism can both be true) so unintuitive and so blantantly wrong that I cannot make any deep level observstion on the subject. I don't feel that I should have to argue agsinst a position that needs a couple pages to show false.

I'm still reading through essay with a finer tooth comb, but based off what I see:

I do see some issues in regards to slavery and woman's rights, as he mentions. However, I don't think what he refers to as "basic instutions" are things like slavery. It's not what counts as property that is basic, but rather the concept of private property. It's not what Americans would consider conservative economic principles, but rather free market driven economics in general.

I do think there is a problem with not defining "intolerable" with more precision. As Bitter Crank, unenlightened, and others point out, there can be a lot of "people feeling powerless and people making the decision to persist another day, rather than challenge a normally intolerable institution.

What is/are the common roles and functions of all government? What are the responsibilities of all governments? — TopHatProductions115

Point of reference: are you asking what functions a government must serve to be called a government (the miminum requirements to be called a state)? Or are you asking what is the proper aim and functions a government should take on? You seem to mix both in the original question.

How are the effects different from people believing in god, even though god does not exist? In other words, what testable and observable difference is there between people practicing Christianity when Christianity is true and people practicing Christianity when Christianity is false and the practicioners of Christianity are simply wrong about their beliefs?

Again, in science, you start from observations, go to testable hypothesis then go to experiments to eliminate those hypotheses that are false. You are beginning with the hypothesis being true and then are looking for ovservations that would be there if the hypothesis is true. You are assuming the conclusion.

You are simply proclaiming the teleological argument and are trying to phrase a philosophical argument in science in order to make your argument appear stronger.

You cannot scientifically test either hypothesis "God exists" or "chance created" without being able to falsify either. You cannot run tests at all because it would require us to be outside the universe and set up a bunch of tests on possible worlds.



Normally, I would agree with you, but I have seen very bad arguments before, particularly on the topic of god.

1. You never actually explained why andrewk's rebuttal on how you prove every god (even gods that logically oppose each other's existence) or my rebuttal with proving ghosts and the occult exist do not show the form of your argument is faulty.

2. You never falsified my equally valid hypothesis to explain the observation, one that you must accept in at least some cases because certain gods cannot coexist: people's belief in their god causes them to perform actions, not the actual existence of said god. Said god could not exist and people would still behave the way they do based on the false belief that said god exists.

3. You created a false analogy between the stone-window and god-people. With the stone, I clearly see the cause and watch the cause create the effect. With god, I only see the effect of people's behaviors, not the cause of god in any direct sense, so much so that I can question a god as an actual cause. To make the stone anology proper, imagine we have a broken window. We want to find out what caused the window to break, but we have a bunch of possible causes: baseball, stone, sledgehammer, bullet, and so on, all of which are valid, but untested, hypotheses as a cause of the broken window.

Science uses observation, hypothesis testing, and experiment to narrow down a list of possible causes for an observed phenomenon. You have not shown any testings of hypotheses, any studies, any numbers- all you have is the observation that people behave in certain ways and that said people say they do so because of a particular god.

Now, as a scientist (or just a philosopher), we have to consider the various opposing possible explantions (hypotheses) in order to test them to see if we can prove any false. It is true a possible explanation for at least one god is that said god exists. However, you have no demonstrated, even in the weakest philosophical sense, how the competing explanation- people act that way because of their belief in a particular god, not because said god exists- is false. This is especially bad given that we know that this hypothesis has to be true, given that people believe and base their actions around mutually exclusive gods.

Given your argument:

As andrewk stated, every form of deity must exist, at least the ones currently being worshipped/acknowledged.

Ancient aliens must exist.

Magic and the occult (ghosts, demons, palm readings, out-of-body projection, etc.) must exist.

And so on and so forth.

Under the argument, there is no distinction between the effects caused by people's beliefs in something existing and that something actually existing, which is clearly false.

As an 'argument against design' it fails, because a cup is a designed artefact, and there can be no broken cup without there having been a cup, which requires a designer. — Wayfarer

The argument the author presents is that just because a bunch of precise factors needed to happen to make a particular piece of cup does not imply that the piece of cup was intellegently designed to be that way, thus defeating the second premise if the argument presented. The fact that the cup is made by humans is irrelevant; it could be a rock formation accidently broken.

The difference in you see is based in what is referred to qualia. We know that different people have different perceptions of the quality of color, for example. However, there would be no difference in the physical light waves that are orginally on the object. At best, you can argue qualia is different.

Depending on the subject in question, it becomes harder and harder to see how different indviduals responding to the same external, mind-independent reality could reach the same conclusion and have radically different internal thought processes whose differences are impossible to detect.

We know that people do not think the same way, as we can have two people who are epistemic peers (have same evidence and same rational ability about a given subject) can reach two radically different conclusions on a problem.

I assume you are referring to punishment. When you commit a crime and are found guilty, you are sentenced a harm (fine, jail time, and, in some cases, death). It may be true that this system, from an evolutionary biological perspective, probably has its roots in our feelings of fairness and empathy being violated, thus producing feelings of anger and a desire to harm the transgressing individual. However, law also allows for societies to work and live together in a more uniform way, so there is a lot more to law and justice than those feelings.

I admit that my experience with philosophy of law is restricted to one college course, but I can say the distinction between justice and vengeance is considered a very important part in some circles (namely retributive justice) within the philosophy of law. First, generally speaking, we must remove the non-retributive aspects of punishment; things like deterrence theory, rehabilitation efforts, isolation efforts, and punishment meant to restore the community. These influence the law and we see and are not based in anything that can be called vengeance. We are then left with retribution. At its core, retributive punishment assumes that people who do wrongdoing deserve punishment- that evil acts, so to speak, deserve some kind of punishment that is correlated to the amount of harm their crime committed. There are constant arguments about what crime deserves what punishment and how the factors surrounding each individual's crime on a case to case basis affects the punishment due. In other words, the law constantly wants to check itself to make sure it is not giving out punishments that are overbearing or turn proper justice (the right amount of punishment) into vengeance (overbearing punishment based on the feeling to hurt the offender, not what the offender actually deserves).

After all that, the question remains: does the retributive theory of justice hold up (does justice equal proper punishment based on deserving said punishment)? In my mind, no. First, law (at least in the United States) assumes that an individual cannot undergo cruel and unusual punishment. Judges cannot give sentences that involve torturing people, even though it appears to be the case that some offenders deserve a level of punishment that involves torture for their crimes. We even argue about whether the death penalty and solitary confinement are "cruel and unusual". Second, given we find "eye for an eye" justice to be immoral, it remains to be seen how the retributive theory actually corresponds the notion of punishment (harm to the offender) to the notion of desert (what harm the offender deserves). If stealing 300,000 dollars does not equate to 300,000 dollars’ worth of punishment, how does it ever equate? Lastly, I do not believe people have free will, so I find personal responsibility to be faulty and hold that no one ever deserves any form of punishment or praise in the sense that people usually mean when they say "he deserves life in jail".

In short, I find that justice based on retribution (the common version of justice in much of theoretical law in the U.S.) to be nothing more than unjustified vengeance fueled by emotion and a vague, incoherent notion of desert. However, there may be other conceptions of justice that do not rely on desert that may be true and do not require vengeance to fuel them.

I'm with Bitter Crank on this one. What westerners (or those living in highly western-influenced countries, which is the vast majority at this point) consider to be important for music is very different from traditional non-western music.

I play guitar. There is a major difference between hearing music as a listener, playing music, and composing music. The reason why songs feel a certain way is often the result of a talented group of individuals (musicians, producers, etc.) all working together to make it that way. When you play, you realize that there are only really twelve notes in different octaves, only seven of which are in a given a key and usually make up the majority of the music. You have to watch your timing and often can't just stop and go on auto-pilot mode, so to speak. That is, you can't sit passively and get engrossed in the music as a piece of art, you have to actively take a part in the music, which requires you to usually put your attention into it and constantly think about what you are doing. I can only imagine this feeling of dettachment would only increase as a musician who spent hours writing a 3 minute piece of music and many more hours practicing it in order to play it live.

I suggest that being an active part in music is what is making TimeLine feel their music is off ("inauthentic").

What are you talking about when you say "archaic intelligence" and "modern intelligence"? All the original post states is the question of whether the universe was intelligently designed (made by some sort of conscious and purposeful entity, like god or some self-aware cosmic force, as opposed to chance). Are you referring to the difference between an omniscient being and a non-omniscient being? If you are, I don't really see how you are arguing against my original point (that the article sets up a strawman argument that it can knock down and does not apply to the teleological argument as such).

I do not see omniscience or even "assume I know" in anywhere at any point, so I am not sure what you are referring to. I am saying that if I wanted to criticize the linked article in the original post, I would say that it creates a strawman version of the teleological argument that makes it look like the argument is making a claim that "order must necessarily come from an intelligence". The teleological argument does not need to make that strong of a claim and can claim "given the extremely high level of order and chance that the universe and life on Earth would have to go through to exist by chance, it is more likely than not that an intelligent being created the universe".

If you are referring to Amio's argument directly, she is replying to the idea that "order must necessarily come from intelligence" by drawing an analogy between the universe and the broken cup. the broken piece might be very weird, unique, and possibly a semblance of order to it, but we would never assume the broken cup piece was intelligently designed; the same for the universe. She does not say she has god-like intelligence that ability to know that the piece was not intelligently designed, but that we have no reason to and would never assume a broken piece of pottery we dropped on the floor was intelligently designed, therefore, we have no reason to believe the universe was designed. I don't think it is a very good analogy, but I get what she is getting at. The article does not appear to be that carefully worded or well written. I doubt that the phrasing issues andrewk pointed out were intentional, but were the result of extremely poor word choice.

In criticizing, the argument presented appears to be disingenuous, in that it sets up an strawmanish version of the argument (I don't think you are referring to Intellegent Design theory, but the teleological argument for the existence of the god of classical theism).

Generally:

1. There is order and complexity in the universe.

2. Given the alternative (random chance), it is more likely that there is something giving the order we see in the universe.

This argument makes less strong claims in that it does acknowledge that it is possible that chance created the order we see, but it is saying that it is more likely (given what we know about the universe and our prior experience with order) that something created the order. It avoids the cup criticism is that it agrees with the cup example, but claims that it does not disprove the argument.

Granted, I still think it is a bad argument, but it's a start if you want to simply criticize the post.

What?

Perhaps my phrasing conveyed my message poorly, as I could see how you got that. I meant to convey this:

The position of the theist is that something called god exists. The theist may have reasons and arguments for believing this god exists.

The theist may have reasons and arguments for their position, which is simply something called god exists. The only real big push for the existence of a god and a connection to the Big Bang I can think of (within more intellectual circles, not random apologetists for whatever religion) is William Craig's formulation of the Kalaam cosmological argument.

If we are defining moral relativism as cultural relativism, I agree that it does not adequately describe how people think and act on a personal level, but, then, I'm not sure if that is what it strives to do. I think what it aims to do is describe morality in the same terms we would discuss other cultural practices like a historian or sociologist would. The cultural relativist is stating morality is like fashion or etiquette and varies from cultural framework to cultural framework. It doesn't really work as a pure meta-ethical stance because it doesn't handle deviants or extreme minorities in moral opinions very well, but it works as a desciption of morality in a general sense.

Okay, that is a very different definition than what science means within my real life circles. I would generally just call that philosophy.

Under that definition, I'm not really sure you can say theism is against science. You may say it is bad science or mistaken science- you may say that theism has poor arguments or make mistakes somewhere - but it would still be science. I'm not even sure I would call it bad science, considering it would pretty much assume all theistic arguments are without merit.

Could you roughly define science, particularly in how it does not assume methodological naturalism?

What broader metaphysical system?

A full metaphysical system, in this context, would be an entire way of looking at existence. Knowing one is a theist or an atheist is only to know their position on the existence of gods. It does not inform us on their entire worldview. For example, one could be theist who believes human minds are purely physical while one could be a theist who believes in a form of substance dualism between the mind and body.

Not really. It is possible to follow science and become a theist in case the existence of god is scientifically discovered. But you can't be a theist and follow science, because by concluding that "god did it", prior to, or regardless of, a scientific discovery in support of such a conclusion, is not to follow science at all but theism.

You can certainly be a theist with an interest for science as an intellectual puzzle, eg to follow the latest advances in science while keeping them separate from your personal belief in a god. But then your personal belief is not following science but theism.

I realize I mispoke about science. Science is not an epistemological system- it is a part of an epistemological system. Science assumes methodological naturalism. As such, science cannot deal with anything that does not have a physical aspect that it can study. This means that we require aspects of epistemology to deal with the non-physical, including the philosophy of science. Unless the god has a specific physical aspect or is physical, science cannot touch theism directly.

"Theism", "atheism", and "god" are just words that change depending on context. What matters are the meanings of the words. The gods of ancient Greece are much different than the modern philosophical Christian notion of god, and even within Christianity there is argument over what "god" means.

If theism and atheism ever converge, the meanings of the words would be so different than they what they are today that they may as well have different words to represent them. I doubt any such thing will happen, though, considering that atheism is really the rejection of theism.

I don't get your post. Science and theism are not mutually exclusive categories; the former is an epistemological system and the latter is a position within a broader metaphysical system. One can follow science and be a theist.

Is the definition of "morality" in your definitions descriptive or prescriptive? Generally, people who claim morals are not objective usually are using the word descriptively. So, when a cultural relativist states morality is determined by the culture, they are not saying that the individuals inside that culture are obligated to follow the moral norms of that culture, but rather are stating that what we call morality is determined by culture.