The Christian desire that everyone should worship Jesus and insistence that they do so and should be compelled to worship no other gods far exceeded that of the Jews, however. It eventually lead to the destruction of pagan world, though that world survived in certain ways through the Christian assimilation of certain pagan religious traditions, and sometimes even pagan gods via the cult of the saints.

I wonder how and why this enormous alteration in the ancient world took place. — Ciceronianus

You raise some fascinating questions. Have you encountered any decent books that have explored this theme in a useful way?

Well I appreciate your seeing the point. In general what I've laid out is what irks me about those who hold to subjectivist or consent-based moralities when these same people engage in forms of moralizing that necessarily go beyond their own positions — Leontiskos

I can see that.

It's that double standard that is problematic: holding others to a standard that one dispenses with oneself whenever it is convenient to do so. — Leontiskos

A point well made.

Yes, I have no per se objection to "moral naturalism" or that specific form of negative utilitarianism (although I would tend to go further myself). — Leontiskos

And I found this part of the conversation useful. Thanks again.

It's not a projection, it's a fact. Not everyone thinks the way you do, it's not universal, it's not a given, it's not something that can or should be taken for granted about people. — baker

Two things. 1) not everyone thinks like you do either. 2) I am not speaking for others, I am talking for myself.

How much suffering someone experiences along with the pain they're feeling is not the same for all people. — baker

Of course. People ought to make their own decision on this. But the option should be available for those who, like me, would probably prefer that option even if not ultimately taken..

The secondary question of whether this idea could be twisted through "peer pressure" or by unscrupulous relatives is distinct from the question of its usefulness.

But this idea -

you have internalized your local cultural standard of what makes life worth living — baker

Still looks like a projection, or appears to be a patronising dismissal of someone else's' view. The implicit assumption that someone is unable to make an independent assessment of this scenario for themselves.

In other words, you have internalized your local cultural standard of what makes life worth living and from when on life isn't worth living anymore. — baker

Maybe that's a projection on your part. Certainly an overly complicated frame. If I experince irreversible pain I would like to die.

Reification — Treating “the normal” as a property things have, rather than a judgement relative to a practice. — Banno

Not following this one closely, but this resonates with me.

The word normal is also often used as a quasi-virtue. Not merely a statement of social acceptability but a marker of goodness.

Do you think that accounts for 100% of them at all times?

I would go so far as to say that the remarkable Paul of Tarsus was more responsible for the founding of Christianity than anyone, including Jesus. — Ciceronianus

I think that's a widely held view these days.

My OP was intended to be a summary of the factors I think most contributed to Christianity's success. I don't contend no other factors were involved. — Ciceronianus

What is the intention of an OP like this? Is it simply that Christmas time has you pondering, or is it an opportunity to reflect on the idea that major religions spread through politics and terror rather than the efficacy of their beliefs?

For those of us in Australia, we look on incredulously at the apparent religiosity in your homeland.
I often think of that HL Mencken quip from the 1920's - "Heave an egg out a Pullman window, and you will hit a fundamentalist anywhere in the United States."

I suspect that even with all that institutional power and the canny absorption of other faiths, a religion is unlikely to endure and thrive unless it genuinely meets some psychological or social need. Coercion may explain expansion but I'm not sure it accounts for long-term persistence, or meaning for adherents.

For those who are not Christians, like me, it is often difficult to understand why the faith resonates so strongly and what hold it has on people. We tend to look to cold facts of history and politics for an explanation, but perhaps the reasons run deeper than that.

Countries where medically assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal are basically telling people, "If you can't live up to our culture's standards, then it's better that you don't exist at all. And we are gracious enough to make options for this available to you." Some people internalize this and make use of those options. (And there is no shortage of those who will comment on this with, "Finally, at long last." — baker

I don’t know if that’s true. I am currently well and healthy, but I want to retain the option of ending my own life if circumstances deteriorate. If I were to develop a terminal illness that involved significant suffering, I would want that option available.

All fair points. I'm not sure what I think. That's partly why I'm here.

Okay, but do you see how this is a bit like the insanity defense? When a judge calls someone to account for their actions they might say, "I was insane, I was not in my right mind. I cannot be held to account for my actions. — Leontiskos

Sure, I have no defence.

So it seems that you do think there are moral truths that apply to other people whether they want them to or not, given that you literally enforce those truths on others' behavior. — Leontiskos

It has always seemed self-evident that one ought not allow the strong to harm the weak. But perhaps I should never have intervened, and in future, perhaps I won’t.

I find the account of moral naturalism fairly convincing, and I suspect that, if they reflected on it, many secular people would intuitively base their morality in a similar way.

If I have time I'll think about it some more but I'm not sure I have much left to say on this. I appreciate your patience and rigour.

Would you call Jesus a philosopher? Or would you, perhaps, say there’s not enough agreement on what comes from an actual person and what is mythology?

Indeed, Gore Vidal wrote a cute book on Julian.

Whenever something is cultivated by a huge institution like Rome, it’s hard to resist (whether persecution was as significant or not).

But really, remember screenwriter William Goldman’s saying, “No one knows anything,” to account for the lack of knowledge about why some films are hits and others are not. You can probably apply the same idea to religions and cults: some succeed and continually adapt to speak to the culture, while others lose momentum and fail. We don't always know why but seem to enjoy retro fitting explanations.

Would you also say there are positive aspects introduced by Christianity that greatly appealed to people? Some of the messages in the Gospels, for instance, might have resonated widely. A religion that venerates the powerless and the poor might also account for some of its traction.

One also needs to remember that a religion becoming global and powerful is not that unusual, take Islam (which is roughly 6 centuries younger) which is not far behind in terms of popularity. Islam is faster growing too. This may be a function of birth rate.

Would you then say that your interventions were irrational? That your morality does not provide any grounds for intervention, and that by intervening you acted irrationally? — Leontiskos

I'm not sure I would dignify my interventions as a reasoned moral position. More of a response to an emotional reaction. In some cases, also dangerous. But the broader question as to whether I consider the acts I responded to as wrong is probably yes. The foundation for this is tricky, I suppose I’ve generally drawn from a naturalistic view that the well-being of conscious creatures should guide our actions.

Here you are glossing over/ignoring the many times I stated it is not MY view. I guess you just skimmed a couple of the recent posts. — unimportant

No, the bit of mine you quoted was my reaction to the views put forth in the OP.

I think that's a really valid, fair and nicely worded perspective.

I find it much harder to get an avenue of reasoning going for the value (intrinsic, that is) of a baby being born. Babies are surplus. They are often unwanted. Again, without recourse to a 'life is sacred' type line, I'm wanting some reason to think babies are special beyond "well, quite a few people think this". — AmadeusD

I think I largely agree with you. But I am hard wired to want to protect a baby once born. Not that I’d want to keep it myself if it were not mine. We emerge from a culture that venerates snd sentimentalises babies and childhood and we appear hard wired to nurture, rear and teach. Does this make it ‘special’? Probably no more than many other things. Personally when a young woman tells me she isn’t into children and doesn’t want babies, I feel pleased for her. I’ve known many older childless women and not one has ever regretted it.

The OP seems to express a familiar Protestant hatred of sex which Denis Potter beautifully expressed in The Singing Detective.
.

You've never heard of case studies? They are always open to question.
— Tom Storm

See above. — Philosophim

You said this:

Then it was always circumspect and no one should have listened to them. — Philosophim

Isn't that potentially a baby and bathwater situation? Maybe the point is not that no one should have listened or accepted them, but rather that they should always have been understood as approximations of human experience, like most case studies going back across the centuries.

It’s an obvious point that case studies, or narrative descriptions (like journalism), are not science. They are always crafted to dramatize a point and, as such, are inevitably open to allegations of bias, skewing, and stylised representation. But they can be valuable in giving people an impression or sense of an experience (outside of boring experiments and data points).

I guess the question for Sack's material is did he go too far and is there a line, given it's not a science?

Then it was always circumspect and no one should have listened to them. — Philosophim

You've never heard of case studies? They are always open to question.

Most of his famous work were case studies, interpretative narratives which you can’t really peer review. They were stories about what he saw, and heard from relatives, not scientific facts based on experiments which can be replicated.

I'm not a fan of his work but can you say you were “duped” if we don’t really know which parts of his writings were suspect and which parts were not? I wouldn’t think it unusual for popular, literary-style case studies to include some imaginative fabrications. I’m not aware of any sexual misconduct claims, apart from the ones circulated during his life which seem to have been, in Sacks’s own words, a retaliatory act. What are these others specifically?

Even during his life people often accused Sacks of grandstanding and emotionality. I recall the accusation: “the man who mistook his patients for a literary career.”

:up: It is a good formulation and I feel certain we've spoken of this a couple of times before.

Suppose you see someone acting in a cruel way. Would you try to get them to stop, or not? — Leontiskos

I guess I’ve done so. I’ve taken animals from people who were cruel to them. I’ve thrown men out of bars for harassing women. I’ve broken up unfair fights. I’ve stopped police from hurting people a couple of times; a bit more risky. I've stopped men beating women. I've stopped bullies. Would I intervene if it were a bikie gang picking on a lone person? I’m not sure about that, but I would call the police.

I would say, however, that my interventions have been impulsive and were essentially responses to my emotional reaction to what I experienced. I wouldn’t expect everyone to do the same.

I mean….even if I had a completely determined physical explanation for my abject hatred for the taste of Lima beans, isn’t it still me that hates that taste? What kind of explanation is really worth entertaining, that says neural pathways, or ion potentials, hate Lima beans? — Mww

I like it. Nice way of putting it.

It’s the simple representation of how a subject feels about that stuff of which he is the sole determinant factor. Which is the irreducible condition of Kantian moral philosophy: the proper moral agent will do what he’s already determined must be done, whether he feels good about doing it or not. That’s the subject’s condition because of himself: he feels like shit for what he did at the same time it’s he alone, that determined what was to be done. Or he feels great, depends….. — Mww

Thanks for clarifying.

As a moral naturalist: insofar as needless harm – whatever causes every individual human to gratuitously suffer (as well as other kinds of fauna & flora) – is "foundational" such that we cannot not know this about ourselves (or living beings), "moral claims" – non-instrumental / non-transactional norms, conduct or relationships – are "justified" to the extent they assert imperatives which when — 180 Proof

Not sure I fully understand this - are you saying that we all have an inbuilt awareness that needless harm and suffering are bad, and this functions as a basic starting point for morality? And that moral claims are justified when they express obligations that flow from that fact and when they guide us toward reducing needless harm?

Anyway, what do you think? Do you think there are viable alternatives to teleological naturalism for those who hold to at least some universal moral truths? A fairly easy example of teleological naturalism is the hedonist who says, "Humans are pleasure-loving creatures by nature, therefore we do seek pleasure," and this is seen as a ground for a pleasure-based ethic. — Leontiskos

I don’t think I have any firm commitments here but I do lean a bit towards consequentialism. I'm not a big fan of the notion of human nature. I’ve always assumed that morality is either grounded in God (more along the lines of classical theology): something is good because it reflects or participates in God’s being of perfect goodness. Or we make it up as we go and retrofit reasoning to justify it. I’ve tended to be in the latter camp, but I respect well developed ideas even if I don't share them. I also recognise that my intermittent glibness can get me into trouble.

But more importantly, perhaps, I have never had to struggle with ethical choices in life. I just know what I am going to do in almost any situation. I never want to be cruel or cause suffering. I assume I inherit this from culture and upbringing and understand that not everyone shares such a perspective or sees cruelty or suffering in the same way. I also don't claim to be "good" whatever that may be.

Thanks, good clear explanations.

I see your point that for morality to have any universal clout, it would useful to be able to point to a natural telos, since this grounds moral claims in what something is rather than in what people merely happen to agree to. If, as you say, a person does not accept that all people deserve freedom and equal status, then it's not really possible to use that as a justification for why slavery is wrong. Such is the limitation of consensus made principles.

Now by inclination and temperament, I am unlikely to accept that everything has a built in purpose or end towards which it naturally develops. I am not sure I have any sophisticated reasoning for this at my fingertips but I will consider this over the next few days. And we may come to an impasse over this one. Nevertheless I would accept your argument that telos might be a critical concept for a universal ethics.

Just out of interest, do you think there’s a risk of an is–ought fallacy if we accept telos? Isn’t there still a problem in deriving an ought from a natural fact, or would you say that the notion of “inherent purpose” overrides this because it’s built into the concept itself? It's definitional or analytic.

Act of suicide is an immoral thing to do, because it kills life. Even if it is one's own life. It is still killing which is the most evil act to com — Corvus

Are you a pacifist? Do you think killing is wrong in all situations? War; self defence?

Thanks.

Do you believe there’s such a thing as pure reason? I’m not really a science guy but don’t many cognitive scientists view reason as contingent upon how human brains work? Human habits rather than universal necessities. Big and intractable subject.

If morality is a necessary human condition, there’s no need to look for it. All the moral subject does with his philosophy, which just is the looking in some form or another, is come to grips with himself when he’s failed. — Mww

That's a tantalising comment. I'll need to think over it for a bit before I know if I agree.

he role of affect holds, but not as the senses are affected because of real objects, but the internal affect on a moral subject’s condition because of himself. — Mww

I'm not sure I understand this sentence.


I can’t follow or even get through that Kant passage, it’s too dense and complex. Something about duty and God and atheism? I’ve never understood deontology. I think Kant would consider me morally rotten.

Cool. I'm with you on Aristotle over Kant.

So let me try to spell it out again. If we have a goal (end) then some things will be appropriate unto that end and some things will be inappropriate unto that end. Thus following my formula from above, you could rationally say, "If you share this goal then it is wrong for you to do X," but it would be irrational for you to simply say, "It is wrong for you to do X [regardless of any ends]."

So on the means/ends (or means/goals) understanding of morality, how would one secure the possibility of culpability? How would one be justified in saying, "You are wrong to [hold slaves, say]"? Rather than blathering on, I will let you try to answer this question, but it would apparently have something to do with common ends/goals, no? — Leontiskos

Yes, I think you're correct on this.

If we think that the best goal for a society is to promote flourishing then there are better or worse ways to achieve this end. I think this is fair.

Is your sense of what counts as flourishing pure Aristotle or is it also built around some Christian commitment? I made the assumption, perhaps wrongly, that you were aligned with Thomism.

I would argue that most Western ethics (secular and identity politics) seem to be derived from Christian values (and I guess classical Greek), though I know some people might consider this anathema. But how could it not be the case after a couple of millennia?

That seems a theme in the perennial philosophies, doesn't it? — Wayfarer

To be honest morality seems less important there than metaphysics and experience.

[

Then, why should anyone care about what you think is moral or immoral if it is just your emotions speaking? — Bob Ross

That’s right. Perhaps they shouldn’t. But the interesting thing is society likes to set codes of conduct to organise behaviour if it wishes to avoid anarchy and terror. Most people care enough about this and share emotional reactions to the same things. Do we need any more than this?

Seems to me this is how society already functions. We don’t agree on moral foundations but we also don’t want to be robbed and killed.

As I said above, you have to 'be it to see it'. (I'm not being holier-than-thou, I'm far from being holy). But the understanding has soaked in that it's necessary to develop insight into one's own psychodynamic processes - which encompass your circumstances, culture, proclivities, the totality of your being (psuche or soul). A lot of the conflict about morality and belief is obviously grounded in attachment to symbolic meanings and slogans, 'the writhings and thickets of views'. A philosophical mind has to see through that. — Wayfarer

So are you saying that morality is best understood beyond preconceptions, homilies and slogans, by looking inward through self-reflection?

I found the Soren Brier paper: Peircean cosmogony's symbolic agapistic self-organization as an example of the influence of eastern philosophy on western thinking (quite a mouthful). — Wayfarer

Wow! As you say a fantastic title (in the Victorian sense of the word).

If I had my time again, I would read Peirce (very complicated).

Do you hold a particular view about the foundations of moral positions? I am assuming you might locate morality alongside our sense of the sacred? If so, say some more.

although my mother always said she believed there must be more to life than just this world, and she purchased a book from a book club entitled German Philosophy from Leibniz to Nietzsche — Janus

Interesting. My mum was a searcher and was especially interested in Jung, mysticism, and Gnosticism. She was friends with a close colleague of Carl Jung’s, so conversations often turned to what gnosis meant. I forget the answer. Like yours my mum always said there must be more to life than "this". But curiously, when she was dying, she ended up in a palliative care and when asked if she wanted to see the spiritual care worker, she responded, “No, that’s all bullshit.” At the point of death, she had no faith or interest in the spiritual realm, a break from her whole life. Having worked in palliative care, I have seen many religious folk, including nuns and priests lose their faith as death approaches, generally without distress. I’m not sure what this signifies, but it is the opposite of what people often think.

Early Buddhism was in modern terms ascetic, even if Buddhism rejects the extreme ascetic practices of other sects. It was in our terms extremely moralistic, the monastic code had hundreds of rules, some of which, if they were breached, would result in expulsion. The philosophical point, though, is the 'avoidance of the extremes' - of nihilism, on the one side (under which materialism falls), and 'eternalism' on the other (under which a lot of religion falls). — Wayfarer

That certainly sounds like the opposite of what I would preference. :wink:

As for Westen culture, I'm of the view that there it is a still-unfolding dialectic between theism and atheism, materialism and idealism. — Wayfarer

I think that's fair and some of the directions you have pointed to appeal to me also.

One other question I would like to ask is whether you believe there are cross-cultural moral commonalities. — Janus

There seem to be cross-cultural commonalities in most areas, from morality to spirituality.

I’ve generally held that morality seems to be pragmatic code of conduct that supports a social tribal species like humans to get along, hence almost universal prohibitions on lying, killing, murder, and other harms, along with a concurrent veneration of charity and altruism. Hierarchies also seem baked into this.

Anyway you didn't answer my other questions. Of course you are under no obligation to do so. — Janus

Just did. No issues, I just don't have any interesting answers

Do you think the culture, the shaping it does and the values it produces are real in the sense of being actually operative? Are linguistic practices themselves real happenings? What about biology? Is it all a matter of cultural construction too? Do you believe there is an actual world which contributes anything to our sense experience and contributes to shaping culture? — Janus

I have no firm commitments and no expertise, but I guess at a basic level I would say we are the products of inherited concepts and values, and we are shaped by our particular form, meaning our biology, or mode of being. This means reality generally appears to us in a particular way. I use these words without committing to materialism or scientistic models of reality. They are terms we cannot really avoid in conversations like this. I think what we call the “actual world” is fraught. If you mean the world of gravity, water, and buses that can run over people, then I have no problem accepting that. If you mean politics and religion then these are somewhat arbitrary social constructions. I am also open to idealism, but I don't see how this is a particularly useful view.

Jesus mate, you must have been a precocious child of 7 or 8 to be thinking in terms of culture, reality construction, potential worlds beyond our sense experience and human reality being perspectival. What were you reading at the time? — Janus

The usual kids’ books, with the most influential being Huckleberry Finn, as it happens. That gave me a healthy skepticism of civilisation and adult behaviour. But much of it came from going to a Baptist school and having a best friend whose father was a Baptist minister. I was never able to believe in God or in many of the positions adults seemed to hold dear. We had modest debates about God and values, and this promoted a series of views in me that have been swirling around ever since. Bear in mind that the Baptist community I knew was not like the American version; ours was liberal and saw the Bible as a series of allegories for learning, not true stories. I think this also had an impact. But who knows?

I’m not posting this to evangelise Buddhism (although undoubtedly it will interpreted that way by some), but to point out the distinctively Buddhist attitude towards questions that are elsewhere considered foundational to morality and philosophy. Why? Because nearly always these begin with the desire for certainty, ‘man’s desire to know (the very first line in The Metaphysics!)

European culture has for centuries ricocheted between the horns of the dilemma: God or atheism, mind or matter, idealism or materialism, science or religion. But maybe there is no resolution possible on the level at which the dilemma is posed. The Buddhist remedy is presented as the insight into the binding process that culminates in suffering/existence (‘ Such is form, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origination, such its disappearance;… These expressions are all, of course, formulaic, as they are chanted rather than read; all Buddhist sutta s were transmitted orally for centuries before being committed to writing.) — Wayfarer

I appreciate the story. I think you’ve touched on something I agree with, and that is the alarming tendency toward dualistic thinking in the West. Father Richard Rohr, who I have a modest familiarity with, appeals to me in this space, even if he is considered a heretic by some. I’m also attracted to the notion that no final resolution is possible at the level the dilemma is posed. I tend to think that, for me and my path, a search for ultimate answers isn’t really useful. I should just get on with things and try not to cause harm.

What else do you know about Buddhist origins of morality (recognising that there are different schools)? Given your account here, do you think the debate about moral facts is something Buddhist teaching would generally bypass? The Western tradition seems to be a continual search for foundational justification.

I would have thought you are too level-headed to take such thinking seriously, even at an early age. — Janus

At around 7 or 8 I came to the view that culture (and by extension, reality) could be constructed in many different ways, that there was potentially a world beyond our sense experience, and that human reality was ultimately perspectival. By this I also meant our worldviews and values, which I thought people inherited from culture and which, in many cases, were a sham. By “illusory” I didn’t mean a Matrix-style reality (though that did seem a possibility to me in the early 1970s). I still believe that human beings live in a world of values shaped by culture, linguistic practices, and our biology, something along the lines of phenomenology. But I simply don’t have the time or disposition to make a serious enquiry into it.