There is no Law of Nature that provides a basis on which a determination about good or evil could be made. It is, therefore, determined simply by Rules of Man. — Pieter R van Wyk

But you say this apart from understanding what a law of nature is. I can call, say, gravity a "law" of nature, yet there is an analytic of gravity in physics that won't quit. So much for it being a law. All such laws bear the same scrutiny, their presuppositional ground being altogether ignored. Further, what is there about moral good and evil that would even suggest nature would provide an account as to what they are? There is nothing "natural" about this, nothing natural, yet unmistakable in its being in the comparison between states of affairs in the usual sense, facts of the world, and the moral problematic. What makes being thrown into one of Stalin's gulags a moral issue in its very possibility? This is the question. This ground of morality is not a fiction or an interpretation of "what to do" in a moral entanglement. It is PRIOR to the "rules of man" as you call it.

My sincere apology, I should have stated, categorically, what I mean with a Law of Nature. It is actually not that difficult:

Law (of nature):= If the sum of mass, energy, and information is conserved over space-time for (more than one) pairs of interacting components; all the interactions that exist between these components can be described by a unique, specific law, a law of nature. The collection of all these laws then comprise the Laws of Nature. How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence

You are quite correct that nature does not provide an answer to what is morally good or evil. That is all determined by political expedience. And that, is exactly my point!

Law (of nature):= If the sum of mass, energy, and information is conserved over space-time for (more than one) pairs of interacting components; all the interactions that exist between these components can be described by a unique, specific law, a law of nature. The collection of all these laws then comprise the Laws of Nature. How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence — Pieter R van Wyk

Would that be a law that abides independently of the act that conceives it?

You are quite correct that nature does not provide an answer to what is morally good or evil. That is all determined by political expedience. And that, is exactly my point! — Pieter R van Wyk

Political experience, or what includes this but is more inclusive and basic, social experience, determines the historical possibility for morality to appear as it does. Our ethics is derivative, and as it is taken up in novel ways, it establishes precedent for future legal narratives. But talk about the dynamics of moral evolvement doe snot address the issue of the nature of morality; it merely says ideas come and go, ignoring the question of ground, what makes something moral AT ALL.

Would that be a law that abides independently of the act that conceives it? — Constance

It is the law that describes the act; if it is a law of nature, it describes exactly that - a law of nature, describing an act of nature. If it is a Rule of Man, it is determined by the politics we conduct amongst ourselves. The conception (that which conceives it) is determined by evolution. Or emergence, if you prefer this word.

what makes something moral AT ALL. — Constance

It is the politics we play, the Rules of Man that we contemplate, decide upon, accept, ignore, change, circumvent, ... that determine what is moral; for who, and when.

By the way - this provides a fundamental solution to the Demarcation Problem. How I Understand Things. The Logic of Understanding

It is the law that describes the act; if it is a law of nature, it describes exactly that - a law of nature, describing an act of nature. If it is a Rule of Man, it is determined by the politics we conduct amongst ourselves. The conception (that which conceives it) is determined by evolution. Or emergence, if you prefer this word. — Pieter R van Wyk

But if something is called a law of nature, it is generally assumed that the law issues from observation of natural events, making physics the rigorous expression of what nature is and does. The assumption here is that observation yields the natural world in the first place such that it can serve as a ground for things observed, but this assumption doesn't ask the more basic question regarding how observation can do this. The question then is, how can observation be "about" its object given that aboutness is an epistemic requirement? What is there in an observation that makes the basic connection for this?

It is the politics we play, the Rules of Man that we contemplate, decide upon, accept, ignore, change, circumvent, ... that determine what is moral; for who, and when.

By the way - this provides a fundamental solution to the Demarcation Problem. How I Understand Things. The Logic of Understanding — Pieter R van Wyk

But is the nature of ethics itself simply a matter of rules? In science, there are rules, principles, but the "aboutness" of these rules has its content in the essential givenness of a world, the regularities of appearance and behavior, and when we look to what this is, we find essential content in the hardness of a rock or mineral or the spectral analysis of a star's light and the like. Are you saying that ethics has nothing of this essential content that constitutes its "aboutness"? Nothing that grounds ethics apart from rule making?

Is the logic of understanding: not clear on this, for accepting, ignoring, and the rest apply to reasoned arguments about the natural world as well as ethics. One does not stand before the rigors of science as if one were only to receive and obey; rather, one stands amidst standards of acceptance that are in play.

Please consider: :"The only thing we have is a perception of things, albeit physical, abstract or imaginary things. Through perception, we gain information, glean knowledge, construct abstract things and conjure imaginary things - even play politics."

If you want to speak of aboutness or giveness, you should provide a concise description of your perception of the meaning of these words. (The aboutness of aboutness :nerd: )

But if something is called a law of nature, it is generally assumed that the law issues from observation of natural events, making physics the rigorous expression of what nature is and does — Constance

I am not assuming anything, I have given you, precisely, my perception of a "Law of Nature". If you do not agree with my definition you are welcome to give me your definition. Then we can discuss these definitions and perhaps glean some knowledge.

But is the nature of ethics itself simply a matter of rules? — Constance

Yes, the Rules of Man.

Are you saying that ethics has nothing of this essential content that constitutes its "aboutness"? Nothing that grounds ethics apart from rule making? — Constance

Yes, that is what I am saying. "The Laws of Nature have no morality, no honour nor any legal standing." Also, "Any decision on what is good and what is evil is made based on whatever is politically expedient ... It is therefore, determined simply by Rules of Man."

All my quotes from: How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence

Please tell me, by whom or by what authority can a decision be made that something is good and something else is evil? A scientist, a politician, perhaps a religious leader ... perhaps a philosopher?

Please consider: :"The only thing we have is a perception of things, albeit physical, abstract or imaginary things. Through perception, we gain information, glean knowledge, construct abstract things and conjure imaginary things - even play politics."

If you want to speak of aboutness or giveness, you should provide a concise description of your perception of the meaning of these words. (The aboutness of aboutness :nerd: ) — Pieter R van Wyk

One can ignore the conditions of observation as conditions, as constitutive conditions, and empirical science routinely does this, and the claim here is certainly not that science gets it all wrong because it does not responsibly look at this constitutive ground; it simply means that science is not interested in philosophy. Philosophy attempts to understand matters at the most basic level of assumptions and questions, and it cannot ignore this. As to aboutness: calling this on my desk a pen is to claim a relation between the utterance, the thought, the apprehension here, and "that over there". This relation is the perceptual act and the analysis of this act is what I would call an analysis of simple and essential epistemic distance, and again, science and everyday affairs assumes this to be without issue, and aboutness never becones a theme of discussion. But make the move to understand this relation explicitly, and serious issues emerge instantly.

I am not assuming anything, I have given you, precisely, my perception of a "Law of Nature". If you do not agree with my definition you are welcome to give me your definition. Then we can discuss these definitions and perhaps glean some knowledge. — Pieter R van Wyk

Well, this "law of nature" is an assumption, as is whatever I say is the case. I think a law of nature is first a law, and a law is a rational generality, more or less rigorously conceived. There are no laws in that tree over there, if the standard of naturalism is used to understand it. "Laws of nature" is a loose way to refer to things in the world, and we all talk this way in casual familiarity; more accurately, laws are what we contribute to the event of acknowledging the tree, the planet, star, or what have you.

Yes, the Rules of Man. — Pieter R van Wyk

I don't doubt that there are such rules, but I do say that demarcation problem is not going to be resolved by demarcating a difference in the laws of nature and ethics. Nature's content is reduced to natural laws, while ethics' content is reducible to ethical laws, loosely speaking. Or do I miss your meaning here?

Yes, that is what I am saying. "The Laws of Nature have no morality, no honour nor any legal standing." Also, "Any decision on what is good and what is evil is made based on whatever is politically expedient ... It is therefore, determined simply by Rules of Man." — Pieter R van Wyk

By definition the laws of nature have no morality, for what is moral is not a phenomenon found in nature. Of course, calling these natural laws at all presents a question, for per the above, there are no laws IN nature, unless, that is, nature and reason can be conceived as a unity, which is my view. The interesting question arises: if nature's "laws" are the work of the way we take up nature and deal with it, what is it that morality deals with such that its laws have meaning at all? Certainly not clouds and planetary systems, but good and evil: what are these as such?

Please tell me, by whom or by what authority can a decision be made that something is good and something else is evil? A scientist, a politician, perhaps a religious leader ... perhaps a philosopher? — Pieter R van Wyk

Of course, take a flame and hold it under your hand for a moment. Now you know the prima facie injunction against doing this to yourself or anyone else.

One of the things I find peculiar about some people (some philosophers) is my perception that they throw words around like a 'rich man', nickels and dimes:

"... conditions, observations, constitutive, empirical, responsible, understanding, assuming, aboutness (a new one for me), relation, perceptual, analytical, thoughtful, apprehensive, simple, essential, explicit, emerging, definitive, phenomenal, conceived, interesting, reasonable, ..."

Now,

Please tell me, by whom or by what authority can a decision be made that something is good and something else is evil? A scientist, a politician, perhaps a religious leader ... perhaps a philosopher?
— Pieter R van Wyk — Constance

Please answer my question, a simple question: who or by what authority can such a decision be made?

then we could continue this conversation.

Please tell me, by whom or by what authority can a decision be made that something is good and something else is evil? A scientist, a politician, perhaps a religious leader ... perhaps a philosopher? — Pieter R van Wyk

It's a fair question. My answer would be that various intersubjective communities have their leaders who make those calls, and community members agree and follow. It might be a politician, a judge, a rabbi, the Pope, a cult leader, a teacher, or even the 'high priest' at a university philosophy department.

But I am personally not aware of a single binding decision made by anyone that something is good or evil. Both of those categories, to me, are poetic notions I generally avoid. I tend to think more in terms of beneficial or harmful deeds. But again, these are contingent categories for the most part. Although if someone asked me whether blowing up the world was beneficial or harmful, I would probably answer the former. That said, I can certainly see an argument that wiping out all life on Earth might be one way to end suffering forever. Beneficial perhaps.

My answer would be that various intersubjective communities have their leaders who make those calls, and community members agree and follow. It might be a politician, a judge, a rabbi, the Pope, a cult leader, a teacher, or even the 'high priest' at a university philosophy department. — Tom Storm

... which takes us back, exactly, to my statement: the decision is made, in general, by what is politically expedient. Thus:

"There is no Law of Nature that provides a basis on which a determination about good or evil could be made. It is, therefore, determined simply by Rules of Man." How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence

There is no Law of Nature that provides a basis on which a determination about good or evil could be made. — Pieter R van Wyk

I came to this position when I was in my teens.

But of course this is just a perspective. There are theists who would argue differently.

the decision is made, in general, by what is politically expedient — Pieter R van Wyk

I think this is probably largely correct, although I would say that most positions on morality are related to tribal survival. A tribe/society that allows widespread theft, killing, and violence will collapse. Although, so far, America hasn’t done so… I guess we could see morality as a code of conduct, and yes, expediency is one frame to use to explain it. :wink:

But of course this is just a perspective. There are theists who would argue differently. — Tom Storm

The only thing we have is perception ...

Although, so far, America hasn’t done so… — Tom Storm

South Africa is also hanging on ... by a thin thread.

Thank you for your comment and feedback.

Did you watch the above video? I agree with everything he said in the video. Please note that I am talking about the Biblical God.

Christopher Hitchens may not have been a professional philosopher, but I don’t think that diminishes the depth or value of his insights. What I find interesting about what he says about God is not technical philosophy but moral and existential clarity.

He challenges the assumption that belief in God automatically makes a person moral, and he exposes the moral contradictions in many religious doctrines - especially those that sanctify cruelty, fear, or submission. He asks uncomfortable but necessary questions: If God is good, why does he permit suffering? If morality depends on divine command, does that make genocide or slavery good if commanded by God?

Hitchens also reminds us that we can find meaning, awe, and compassion without invoking the supernatural. He combined reason, moral passion, and literary brilliance - showing that intellectual honesty and empathy can coexist.

So, while he wasn’t a technical philosopher, he was a moral and cultural critic who made philosophy accessible and urgent - which, to me, is just as important.

"... conditions, observations, constitutive, empirical, responsible, understanding, assuming, aboutness (a new one for me), relation, perceptual, analytical, thoughtful, apprehensive, simple, essential, explicit, emerging, definitive, phenomenal, conceived, interesting, reasonable, ..." — Pieter R van Wyk

Errr, yes, those terms are common in philosophy. I did hazard to think that they would be okay....in a philosophy club.

Please answer my question, a simple question: who or by what authority can such a decision be made?

then we could continue this conversation. — Pieter R van Wyk

Philosophy certainly is a conversation that breaks away from normal language, the everydayness of familiar talk, but then, so is physics. You seem to think there is nothing to say that common sense can't handle, but the very nature of taking matters down to the wire, so to speak, where the most basci assumptions are brought to light, requires precisely this thematic withdrawal from easy thinking. It really does depend on the reader, the inquirer: how much do you care about these issues? How much thinking are you willing to go through?

Simply put (and I apologize for thinking in paragraphs and not simple sentences): you want to know where the authority lies to make right moral judgments, and there are those who try to give answers to this, MIll, Bentham, Kant come to mind, but really, it is a historically recurring issue. But questions like this BEG other questions. (You know what this is, right? Not to be condescending, but you did explicitly declare a distrust of concepts, and this one is front and center. To beg the question is to assume something that hasn't been made clear as to its justification in whatever is being talked about.) So before I can even make sense of "by what authority" I have to understand what is being talked about. Ethics. So what IS ethics? You see this point? I am not at all saying that ethical thinking and its social and political contexts is free of the indeterminacies of decision making, but rather, I am saying such discussion rests more on inquiry into the nature of ethics itself, and I am further saying that once one looks more closely at this ground of ethics, there IS a discoverable foundation that does stand as an authority. It is just not the kind of authority that resolves complicated practical matters. Rather, it grounds ethics, in the way that logic grounds the reason found in everyday talk. You and I may argue, say, about politics, but this openness of the issues does not deny the very firm ground in the reasonable talk itself--conditional phrases, conjunctions and negations, and so on. Here, I am saying there is also a firm ground for ethicality itself that is not offended by this openness.

So I agree with your thinking that "the rules of man" are inescapably arbitrary, but I counter that this is not a penetrating analysis as it does not even touch upon the the essential issue, which is about the nature of ethics itself. The OP asks what ethics IS. This is where my response goes. Its nature, its essence.

Did you watch the above video? I agree with everything he said in the video. Please note that I am talking about the Biblical God.

Christopher Hitchens may not have been a professional philosopher, but I don’t think that diminishes the depth or value of his insights. What I find interesting about what he says about God is not technical philosophy but moral and existential clarity.

He challenges the assumption that belief in God automatically makes a person moral, and he exposes the moral contradictions in many religious doctrines - especially those that sanctify cruelty, fear, or submission. He asks uncomfortable but necessary questions: If God is good, why does he permit suffering? If morality depends on divine command, does that make genocide or slavery good if commanded by God?

Hitchens also reminds us that we can find meaning, awe, and compassion without invoking the supernatural. He combined reason, moral passion, and literary brilliance - showing that intellectual honesty and empathy can coexist.

So, while he wasn’t a technical philosopher, he was a moral and cultural critic who made philosophy accessible and urgent - which, to me, is just as important. — Truth Seeker

Yes, and I agree with a lot he says, but it is a lot of references to science and a failed theodicy, and a position like this is simply part of a denial-fest that post modern thinking ushers in. Atheism is just as bad as theism when the conversation is reduced to this level of understanding. His is an empirical discussion, and his common sense is riddled with superficial denials, and again, I agree, but it simply bears none of the signs of serious philosophical thought. His is a popular remedy for bad thinking, filled with derogation and pithy phrasing, the kind of thing that circulates lazily through idle minds that crave cynicism. It fails utterly to look closely at the idea of God.

Take meaning, awe, and compassion without without the supernatural: well, what IS the "natural"? God is certainly not a natural concept; it is a moral concept, and so, what is ethics? Where is the boundary between the natural and the supernatural? What happens when we ask the most basic questions? Compassion refers to the self, a comportment (a way of regarding) the world that issues from our own constitution: what happens when this constitution is allowed to be free of the "science" that keeps it contained in a localized domain of "subjectivity"? Ask what an object IS, and can it be shown that one actually observes a world that stands apart from t he asking itself?

I mean, the questions that brings philosophy into its own depths are profound, literally. OTOH, I probably should give Hitchens his due, given that the great religious narrative really does need to yield to philosophy, for philosophy is the conscience of religion, keeping the question (that piety of thought!) that undoes unjustified belief alive. The religious narrative has to go; but the greatness cannot be argued away. It is IN the fabric of our existence.

Christopher Hitchens may not have been a professional philosopher, but I don’t think that diminishes the depth or value of his insights. What I find interesting about what he says about God is not technical philosophy but moral and existential clarity.

He challenges the assumption that belief in God automatically makes a person moral, and he exposes the moral contradictions in many religious doctrines - especially those that sanctify cruelty, fear, or submission. He asks uncomfortable but necessary questions: If God is good, why does he permit suffering? If morality depends on divine command, does that make genocide or slavery good if commanded by God?

Hitchens also reminds us that we can find meaning, awe, and compassion without invoking the supernatural. He combined reason, moral passion, and literary brilliance - showing that intellectual honesty and empathy can coexist. — Truth Seeker

I’m an atheist and I mostly enjoyed him, but I wouldn’t say Hitchens was deep or insightful, he simply recycled the usual secular free thought ideas that had been offered since Ingersoll and before. All of the Hitch's “thinking” consisted of familiar atheist talking points I’d already encountered when reading Madalyn O’Hair decades before he took them up.

The morality argument is a particularly creaky and venerable position. But many have overlooked that since Christians cannot agree on what is morally good or not ( on issues like capital punishment, stem cell research, abortion, homosexuality, trans rights, gun ownership, war, welfare reform, taxation, feminism, etc, etc) one can hardly argue that they have an objective grounding for morality. What they appear to have are multiple and contradictory interpretations of guesswork and speculations regarding which version of god may be real and what it thinks.

Errr, yes, those terms are common in philosophy. I did hazard to think that they would be okay....in a philosophy club. — Constance

My apologies, I do try not to be condescending, contentious and obstinate, but apparently I am (just had a conversation with my friend to this effect). The problem I have is that I am not a philosopher (merely an engineer) and English is not my mother tongue (where I grew up the standing joke was that English is only spoken in self defence). The point I am trying to make is that words should be used carefully and concisely. Also, one must always ensure, especially during a debate (and when giving an instruction to a subordinate in a running steel plant) that both parties have the same understanding of the meaning of words used.

Consider:

"Attempting to define or study any ambiguous notion by describing it in terms of other ambiguous words; is inevitably doomed to ambiguity. Adding more and more ambiguous words to this effort will never change this result."

Now to the question contemplated in this thread: "What is right and what is wrong and how do we know? Apparently (to my understanding) the question contemplated in the philosophical study of ethics.

My answer to this question is that it is determined by politics.

"Politics:= A process used by humans to propose, contemplate, and implement Rules of Man in order to test their conformance to the Laws of Nature that best describe the purpose of any and all companies."

"Rules (of Man):= The time-variant interactions between systems, capable of abstraction, these systems use to create rules for themselves. The collection of all these rules then comprise the Rules of Man."

If I understand your answer correctly, it is ethics that provide a determination on what is right and what is wrong. Which, in my understanding, only transpose (I checked the meaning of this word with Prof. Google and it seems okey) the question from 'what is right and what is wrong' to 'what is ethical and what is not'.

there is also a firm ground for ethicality itself that is not offended by this openness. — Constance

Please share this firm ground with me, so that I may gain understanding.

Thank you for sharing your observations. Given how self-contradictory the Bible is, I am not surprised that Christians can't agree about what is right and what is wrong.

I agree that philosophy must go deeper than empirical refutations or moral outrage - but Hitchens’s value lies precisely in the moral dimension that many technical philosophers neglect. He exposes how certain conceptions of God license cruelty and submission, and that critique operates at the level of moral phenomenology, not mere empiricism. When he asks “What kind of being would demand eternal praise under threat of hell?”, he isn’t just being cynical - he’s inviting us to examine the psychological and ethical structure of the “God-concept” itself.

You ask what is “natural” versus “supernatural.” I’d say that distinction loses meaning if “God” cannot be coherently defined or empirically differentiated from nature. Once the supernatural ceases to have observable consequences, we’re left only with human moral experience - which is precisely where Hitchens situates his inquiry: in compassion, honesty, and the freedom to question.

If “God” is a moral concept, then its worth must be judged by the moral outcomes it inspires. A concept that sanctifies fear, tribalism, or subservience fails on its own moral grounds. The greatness you mention may indeed be woven into the fabric of human existence - but perhaps what we call “God” is simply our evolving attempt to articulate that greatness in moral and existential terms. When the old metaphors harden into dogma, philosophy reopens the question.

So I’d say: philosophy doesn’t replace Hitchens’s critique - it completes it.

[

I agree that philosophy must go deeper than empirical refutations or moral outrage - but Hitchens’s value lies precisely in the moral dimension that many technical philosophers neglect. He exposes how certain conceptions of God license cruelty and submission, and that critique operates at the level of moral phenomenology, not mere empiricism. When he asks “What kind of being would demand eternal praise under threat of hell?”, he isn’t just being cynical - he’s inviting us to examine the psychological and ethical structure of the “God-concept” itself. — Truth Seeker

But no, he isn't, well, no more than George Carlin "examines" this. All you say here is exactly why I call him a pop philosopher. God comes into a culture bound up in assumptions, but essentially, most of what is in this concept is a fiction, a narrative taken up to contend with the overwhelming conditions of our existence, and this narrative is constructed out of a totality of a world we are "thrown" into, a totality that is finite, grounded in the historicity of language and culture. When Hitchens "analyzes" popular "churchy" ideas about God, he does so still within the analytical framework of those very ideas, still outside the essential questions, which are much harder to discover; in fact, the philosophy that leads to discovery actually discovers the openness of the world and its foundational indeterminacy, which is not a denial or a doubt or a derision, but a penetration.

But I will say again that my standards are pretty out there. In a word, Hitchens is just a bore. NOT that he is flat out wrong, but that he encourages a "cynical nihilism" which is the ability to gainsay at one's leisure sans the gravitas of what only deeper analysis can yield, and is therefore what I would call a casual nihilism, a reduction to idle talk about things that are the very antithesis of this mentality. God is, beneath the ready to hand dismissals, a profound concept, and this goes to a metaethical analysis of our existence, and this takes us into a very alien world: the at first presuppositionally acknowledged world in argument, then the intuitively acknowledged world of phenomenality: the phenomenality of this book, that tree, and then, this suffering, that delight. As Kierkegaard once put it, one has to realize that one actually exists, but we live in a culture that treats the human existence as derivative.

What you asked about the consummatory and redemptive modalities of religion (of God) earlier, you ask a question that is far, far flung from ordinary thought. One has to spend some serious time with Husserl's Ideas I and the famous, or infamous, phenomenological reduction.

You ask what is “natural” versus “supernatural.” I’d say that distinction loses meaning if “God” cannot be coherently defined or empirically differentiated from nature. Once the supernatural ceases to have observable consequences, we’re left only with human moral experience - which is precisely where Hitchens situates his inquiry: in compassion, honesty, and the freedom to question. — Truth Seeker

Take the term "supernatural" off the table, for it is just as steeped in a connotative opacity as God is, as religion is, as the soul is. So much comes to us in assumptions that make their way invisibly into common thinking, and by the time one can raise a question, the question itself conceived out of that which the question is about, and this becomes and exercise in circular thinking, and so it is the question that needs to be restructured to be more "about" the world, rather than about mere postulations and assumptions that have "gone without saying" for so long.

God as an anthropomorphism makes for the best kind of strawman thinking for atheists, because it ascribes to God thought, intention, desire, and so on. One conceives ot God the creator, then handily tears this concept to shreds based on the moral culpability of God. It is an entire faqbrication, and, to add, it matters not at all that most believe in God the creator, any more than it matters to physics what people believe: it is a study independent of what is popular, grounded evidentially. Can you imagine what physics would look like if it spent its time simply telling everyone how bad popular conceptions are? This is why I say someone like Hitchens has not even begun to make the move into serious thought.

"Observable consequences" simply begs perhaps the most pivotal question of all: What IS an observation? I will give this to you.

If “God” is a moral concept, then its worth must be judged by the moral outcomes it inspires. A concept that sanctifies fear, tribalism, or subservience fails on its own moral grounds. The greatness you mention may indeed be woven into the fabric of human existence - but perhaps what we call “God” is simply our evolving attempt to articulate that greatness in moral and existential terms. When the old metaphors harden into dogma, philosophy reopens the question. — Truth Seeker

If the moral outcome is inspired by concept constructed out of a fiction, then the outcome is going to be a fiction as well. Not sure why those fears and tribalism and ancient thinking enters into it. Again, one must think like a scientist: what is there, before you, in the horizon of analytic possibilities? All assumptions that are extrinsic to this are suspended. A geologist studying rocks and monerals found in a geologic setting is not a cultural anthropologist wondering about people and their motivations and beliefs and the idiosyncrasies of their religions. She has nothing but the given of the regional ontology of a particular science.

Philosophy is a science that deals with foundational determinacies and their indeterminate boundaries. God is a concept historically conceived at this boundary. One therefore has to look at the nature of where thought meets the world, and it is not thought that will prevail in this enterprise, not the logos, but the pathos, and not being and its beingS, but value-in-being.

Your points about the historicity of thought and the phenomenological horizon are well taken. Yes, any talk of “God,” “the world,” or “the self” emerges from within language and culture, not from an Archimedean point outside them. But I think that is precisely why Hitchens’s critique retains philosophical force. His focus on moral consequences is not “idle talk”; it is an inquiry into how concepts shape lived reality.

You call God a fiction born of thrownness into finitude. Very well, but fictions that shape moral life still have measurable effects. Whether “God” is a phenomenological boundary-concept or an anthropomorphic myth, the question remains: What does belief in this fiction do to sentient beings? Does it cultivate compassion, or sanctify domination? That is not a superficial question; it is an existential one.

You say philosophy should proceed like a scientist suspending cultural assumptions. Yet even the phenomenological reduction cannot suspend the ethical field in which human beings suffer and act. “Value-in-being,” as you put it, is not discovered in neutral contemplation but in encounter - the face of the Other, to borrow from Levinas, not the mineral horizon of a geologist.

When Hitchens challenges doctrines that justify eternal punishment or servitude, he is performing a kind of moral reduction: bracketing divine authority to see what remains of goodness once the threats are removed. That is philosophy doing its most basic work - clarifying the conditions of value and responsibility.

So yes, we can follow Husserl into the indeterminacy of consciousness, or Heidegger into the openness of Being; but we must also follow the child burned at the stake, or the slave whipped in God’s name, into the concreteness of suffering. Otherwise, “pathos” becomes an aesthetic posture rather than an ethical response.

If the “greatness” woven into existence means anything, perhaps it is precisely this - that consciousness is capable of compassion even without metaphysical guarantees. That, too, is philosophy, and it is not nihilism.

My apologies, I do try not to be condescending, contentious and obstinate, but apparently I am (just had a conversation with my friend to this effect). The problem I have is that I am not a philosopher (merely an engineer) and English is not my mother tongue (where I grew up the standing joke was that English is only spoken in self defence). The point I am trying to make is that words should be used carefully and concisely. Also, one must always ensure, especially during a debate (and when giving an instruction to a subordinate in a running steel plant) that both parties have the same understanding of the meaning of words used. — Pieter R van Wyk

Yes, shared meanings is always desirable, but then, if all meanings were shared, then there would be nothing to debate about, for debate insists of something that is not shared. I am afraid my thinking on this matter really is not going to be easily shared with you, and this is because the ideas here presented are most alien to common sense. Thinking about ethics and its ground takes one to thinking about metaphysics, and responsible thought here is hard to come by because most metaphysics is so badly conceived. The language, as you say, has to be carefully considered, but as far as concision, well, explanations have a lot of work to do.

"Attempting to define or study any ambiguous notion by describing it in terms of other ambiguous words; is inevitably doomed to ambiguity. Adding more and more ambiguous words to this effort will never change this result." — Pieter R van Wyk

But ambiguity is pervasive. If every word lacked ambiguity, you would be in logic, not the world, and even logic belongs to the language that speaks it.

"Politics:= A process used by humans to propose, contemplate, and implement Rules of Man in order to test their conformance to the Laws of Nature that best describe the purpose of any and all companies."

"Rules (of Man):= The time-variant interactions between systems, capable of abstraction, these systems use to create rules for themselves. The collection of all these rules then comprise the Rules of Man."

If I understand your answer correctly, it is ethics that provide a determination on what is right and what is wrong. Which, in my understanding, only transpose (I checked the meaning of this word with Prof. Google and it seems okey) the question from 'what is right and what is wrong' to 'what is ethical and what is not'. — Pieter R van Wyk

Okay. Ethics is about what is right and wrong in ethical situations. But we use these terms in situations that are not at all ethical, referring to good pens, bad couches, and we can call this contingent rights and wrongs, goods and bads: A sharp knife is a good knife only if the context of its application finds sharpness a virtue. A sharp knife used in Macbeth would be not be good. All language is like this, context dependent and ambiguity issues from the variable nature of meanings in alternative situations. Ethical rights and wrongs, goods and bads, are the same, contingent, relative to the way values come into play, as you said, but if it is true that ALL language is contingent, that is, it depends on the context to determine whether an action is right or wrong, depends on how a culture defines right and wrong, then how is it possible to ground ethics absolutely, as I claim?

Please share this firm ground with me, so that I may gain understanding. — Pieter R van Wyk

The firm ground must be something that is not articulated in the language of what is said; rather, it lies outside of this, so what lies outside language? Obviously, I cannot tell you. But I can tell you how to discover it for yourself, in fact, I already did: That lighted match you are holding under your hand and the pain it brings into existence is the essence of the ethical principle that tells us that one is prime facie prohibited from actions that make this happen, and this pain is itself what ethics is all about. No pain, no prohibition.

And this prohibition stands entirely outside of the language that declares it. It is not a paradox, but only an honest account of the way ethics can be understood. So when Stalin does his worst, what is being said here does not speak to the ethical entanglements of his time and the complications that are created by these. This is all very messy. But it does say that the meaning of our ethical issues has the gravitas of stone tablets written by God, only without the divine anthropomorphism.

if all meanings were shared, then there would be nothing to debate about, — Constance

Really? Meanings are mostly ambiguous. Thus, if we cannot agree to a meaning then any debate that follows must start with this disagreement else there would be no utility in the debate.

You try to explain a notion to me by giving examples of your understanding: a pen, a couch and a knife; to which you assign human notions: good, bad, virtue. These things (inanimate I understand to be called) does not have human notions: they may have utility for humans, they may be aesthetically pleasing (to a human), they may be used to conduct good or evil acts (again, by humans); but by themselves they cannot be good or evil, only inanimate.

That lighted match you are holding under your hand and the pain it brings into existence is the essence of the ethical principle that tells us that one is prime facie prohibited from actions that make this happen, and this pain is itself what ethics is all about. No pain, no prohibition. — Constance

I do not find anything ethical in this example. Perhaps a test for cognitive ability (a litmus test for stupidity) or perhaps a test to see if the nerves in one's hand is still functional. As for "the ethical principle ..." I put it to you that this is absurd - it is exactly this principle that has been flaunted by: Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Truman, Mussolini, Tojo, Kai-shek ... in order to claim that their decisions were ethical.

Please consider the following:

• For millions of people Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany were good.
• For millions of other people Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany were evil.
• For millions of people Joseph Stalin and Communist Russia were evil.
• However, for the Allied forces, Josef Stalin and Communist Russia were good, at least until the end of the war - a salient example of political expedience by itself.
• To the very large number of private citizens killed in Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Allied Forces were patently evil.

All five of these statements are quite valid, actually patently true, but in clear contradiction to each other, giving evidence of my original statement. So, after about 3% of the world population perished due to a single war - the war after 'the war to end all wars' - no determination can yet be made on what is good and what is evil. How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence

Please, can you give me a salient example where a decision has been made on good or evil that is not based on political expediency.

Yes, any talk of “God,” “the world,” or “the self” emerges from within language and culture, not from an Archimedean point outside them. But I think that is precisely why Hitchens’s critique retains philosophical force. His focus on moral consequences is not “idle talk”; it is an inquiry into how concepts shape lived reality. — Truth Seeker

This is where our views will part, not entirely, but significantly. You are not at ease with an archimedean point, but what would this even be? Metaphysics. Philosophy is essentially metaphysics, and ontology is where metaphysics occurs, though thee is a serious and fascinating dynamic of wht this is about. When I refer to idle talk, I am lifting directly from Heidegger---what can I say, you read enough of this kind of thing, and it becomes your own. This really is the intent of changing the philosopshical narrative: philosophy is VERY personal. Heidegger realizes that what IS, is through and in us first. Nothing comes to us outside of us, the human dasein. It has never been the case, nor can it be, that the world can be affirmed outside of what has been standardly called subjectivity. It is literally impossible to conceive of such a thing, which is why German idealism and its evolved phenomenology is the only genuine and sustainable pov. Idle talk is a technical term, referring to any and all thoughtful regions. He writes, " Idle talk is not used here in a disparaging sense. Terminologically, it means a positive phenomenon which constitutes the mode of being of understanding and interpretation of everyday dasein....It is language...cut off from the primary andn primordially genuine relations of being in the world." You can find in in section 35 of the first division of Being and Time, and the discussion here is of course intimately tied to everything else, so one has to read at least the entire section. The idea here is that idle talk is not idle at all, it can be very active and meaningful, but it is without ontological intention, without a "primordial understanding". You can argue about what Heidegger is referring to, and its boundaries, but for me, I draw the line differently from Heidegger, whose dasein is an historical finitude, and any idea of an archimedean point is going to be "equiprimoridal" only. In other words, he doesn't include an absolute consciousness in his ontology, and religion is "ontotheological" (perhaps think of Hegel without the metaphysics of Geist) and this is simply not where my thoughts settle, so Hitchens, I claim, stands outside of a "genuine" ontology, and this ontology is discovered in the analytic of dasein's ethical nature (which Heidegger gives no attention to that I have found). My comments about Hitchens and idle talk refer specifically to the failure of his critical perspective to make the vital move into real foundational philosophy.

Case in point: you refer to his handling of how concepts shape lived reality, but the discussion never touches upon what this lived reality IS, and so he remains within mundane conversation humanity is having with itself, so to speak, which is fine! if one doesn't want to think philosophically, or with philosophical depth. My only complaint on this would be that he simply encourages popular nihilism as a growing default of post modern culture.

You call God a fiction born of thrownness into finitude. Very well, but fictions that shape moral life still have measurable effects. Whether “God” is a phenomenological boundary-concept or an anthropomorphic myth, the question remains: What does belief in this fiction do to sentient beings? Does it cultivate compassion, or sanctify domination? That is not a superficial question; it is an existential one. — Truth Seeker

The thesis that we can have compassion without metaphysics, with the metaethical analysis I stand by, is familiar, and I agree that any attempt to impose a scripture based religious metaphysical ontology upon the world will likely end in dystopian tragedy. When you ask about what a belief will DO, this is a question of pragmatics, of utility, and I am not addressing this, and again, no more than a scientist asks such questions (putting aside the Oppenheimer dilemma). Not superficial in the consequences, but superficial in the analysis, and the latter is all I have in mind.

You say philosophy should proceed like a scientist suspending cultural assumptions. Yet even the phenomenological reduction cannot suspend the ethical field in which human beings suffer and act. “Value-in-being,” as you put it, is not discovered in neutral contemplation but in encounter - the face of the Other, to borrow from Levinas, not the mineral horizon of a geologist. — Truth Seeker

And Levinas (and Sartre, as well) is motivated by the war and its moral violations, but to talk about actions, philosophically, there has to first be a pursuit of being, and the this is supposed to make for a foundation for providing and evidential ground for talk about right and wrong actions. To me, Levinas is right, but the more basic question, one that I don't see turning up in Totality and Infinity, is about value as such. I find this in Scheler, in Von Hildebrandt, specifically, but in Levinas I believe it is assumed, but this is why I abide by Michel Henry and his Ontological Monism from his Essence of Manifestation, and this is an absorbing analysis that plays out Husserl's reduction to its very end, for this idea must be understood with a clarity that is hard to rise to, and it cannot be acknowledged unless serious time is spent. One has to be obsessed, I think. It is this, and I know I've said this before: One has never, nor can one ever, observe a world apart from dasein, or consciousness, if you like. It is a blatant absurdity, and so the question of what reality IS, must be about dasein, and this brings in an ontological status of our everyday lives that IS in equiprimordiality with everything else. This is the foundational monism, and there are no divisions in Being. The feelings, intuitions, doubts, anticipations, worries and fears, and on and on; the entire body of what we ARE is now in the foreground of "what IS". One has to pull away entirely from naturalistic thinking which wants to call all that one actually experiences derivative. It is exactly the opposite of this: The physical world is derived from the phenomenological givenness; it IS phenomenological givenness first, then "taken as" a physical world and all of its regional ontologies of science, practical matters, narrative incidentals, etc.

And so now, what is the most salient feature of what was formerly called subjectivity and now is the most privileged horizon of Reals? The value dimension of our existence.

Suspending cultural assumptions, incidentals of the particular way a culture creates its institutions, is just an analytic attempt to discover what is there that is NOT an institution. I hold that is such a thing.

When Hitchens challenges doctrines that justify eternal punishment or servitude, he is performing a kind of moral reduction: bracketing divine authority to see what remains of goodness once the threats are removed. That is philosophy doing its most basic work - clarifying the conditions of value and responsibility. — Truth Seeker

Well, every analysis that ever was is reductive, including looking for my shoes to go out. All else is absent but the shoes. It is an apophatic approach: not here, not there...Sartre builds a philosophy on this: Where is Pierre? I look all over the cafe, but he is NOT there and this NOT is my nothingness tha t is at the heart of my subjectivity; hence human freedom and hence accountability for those who aided the Germans during occupation. But I do want to emphasize that I don't think Hitchens is all wrong. I jist don't think he is thinking at the level of real philosophy which is more than just a critical view of popular beliefs. It is a foundational analysis of our existence (and hence of all things).

So yes, we can follow Husserl into the indeterminacy of consciousness, or Heidegger into the openness of Being; but we must also follow the child burned at the stake, or the slave whipped in God’s name, into the concreteness of suffering. Otherwise, “pathos” becomes an aesthetic posture rather than an ethical response. — Truth Seeker

I completely agree. But I want to know, what is ethics? It's essence, what makes something ethical at all? I am not interested in how badly this has been handled by people who are not very careful in their thinking, not unless the matter comes up in some conversation. Rather, I want to know what it is to the think very carefully about the nature of ethics, so these other entanglements can be conceived more deeply.

If the “greatness” woven into existence means anything, perhaps it is precisely this - that consciousness is capable of compassion even without metaphysical guarantees. That, too, is philosophy, and it is not nihilism. — Truth Seeker

Honestly, I really don't care if a person can be compassionate without metaphysics. I pursue what is there to understand what is there. Is there such a person? Of course, multitudes, but this has no bearing at all on the objective metaphysical analytic.

[God] is a moral concept ... — Constance

Please explain.

If “God” is a moral concept, then its worth must be judged by the moral outcomes it inspires. A concept that sanctifies fear, tribalism, or subservience fails on its own moral grounds. — Truth Seeker

:up: :up:

Whether “God” is a phenomenological boundary-concept or an anthropomorphic myth, the question remains: What does belief in this fiction do to sentient beings? Does it cultivate compassion, or sanctify domination? — Truth Seeker

:fire:

Clearly, "God" infantilizes adults (e.g. Kierkegaard's teleological suspension of the ethical aka "holy ends justify any means").

Please, can you give me a salient example where a decision has been made on good or evil that is not based on political expediency. — Pieter R van Wyk

Consider: decisions risking their own lives to hide runaway slaves from a posse of slavers or to hide Jews / homosexuals from gangs of Nazis ... or families of murder victims opposing the
executions of their murderers ...

Really? Meanings are mostly ambiguous. Thus, if we cannot agree to a meaning then any debate that follows must start with this disagreement else there would be no utility in the debate.

You try to explain a notion to me by giving examples of your understanding: a pen, a couch and a knife; to which you assign human notions: good, bad, virtue. These things (inanimate I understand to be called) does not have human notions: they may have utility for humans, they may be aesthetically pleasing (to a human), they may be used to conduct good or evil acts (again, by humans); but by themselves they cannot be good or evil, only inanimate. — Pieter R van Wyk

That about the knife, etc. was only to illustrate that there are two kinds of good and bad, the ethical and the contingent. Martin Buber wrote his I and Thou which is about this, when we treat each other as things, its instead of human agencies, roughly put. So I look at other people and think about their utility, their proper place and identity and how far they deviate, and when these standards are in place, the actual person is lost, yielding to categories of assessment found in everyday problem solving. The ethical is lost. But where lies the ethical? There is something in our agency that answers this question and my interests lie in trying to discover what this is. I am "called" a teacher, a spouse, a tax payer, and so on, but among these my ethical nature doesn't turn up. I only get more functions and analyses. AS a teacher, I am obliged in this way and that, and there are pending obligations and prohibitions, and so on, but these simply make me into a thing, an "it" as Buber put it. My agency, my existence, is reduced to some objective way of defining me. But objects have no ethical status. Ethical goods and bads refer specifically to what is essential to something being present in order for a issue to be ethical, some X, such that if X is missing, there can be no ethics, like thinking without logic. No logic, no thinking.

I do not find anything ethical in this example. Perhaps a test for cognitive ability (a litmus test for stupidity) or perhaps a test to see if the nerves in one's hand is still functional. As for "the ethical principle ..." I put it to you that this is absurd - it is exactly this principle that has been flaunted by: Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Truman, Mussolini, Tojo, Kai-shek ... in order to claim that their decisions were ethical. — Pieter R van Wyk

You don't find anything ethical because you are not looking at the question of an ethical foundation. Rather, you are looking only at the way ethics turns up in ethical problems. I am not addressing the issue of what to do, and where certain actions are wrong while others right This kind of inquiry leads only to a whirlwind of conflicting justifications. Take Truman's decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, and ask, what is it that makes this at ALL important? You can talk about the waste of lives, and torturous ordeal with nuclear toxicity, and the depth of the horror, etc., but this still begs the essential question: Why are these at all "bad"? It seems obvious, but then this is philosophy, where such questions are actually asked rather than simply assumed to be well in hand. Philosophy is about the MOST basic questions, or it is about nothing at all. So the question is, what IS the "bad" and I think we all agree that we are then called to consider the pain, misery, suffering, and whatever words you can assign to it, but there is one more move of discovery" what makes misery bad?

If you are like most, you will find little interest in a question like this. It is a metaethical question that most cannot understand because its assumption is so perfectly clear, but because of this, the significance of the question goes unnoticed, and it is arguable the most important question there is in our existence, for if the ground of ethics does not lie in the way ethics is simply played out in our affairs, in promises, obligations, responsibilities, accountability, guilt, innocence, and the like, then it has to be found outside of these institutions in something more basic, and the word we have for this is value. What does it mean to value something? To care for it? For it to matter or be important? You do see this: if no one cared, valued the consequences of dropping the bomb, the the ethicality of Truman's decision would simply vanish. Caring and its value IS the foundational analytic of ethics. But what IS this?

The aftermath of Hiroshima has its ethical determination measured out in the collective suffering created, and what is collective is only as meaningful as the singularity, the individual, and this has no meaning apart from the actuality of sufferin itself: the pain of burned flesh pealing off, the endless vomiting, the loss of limb, of loved ones, and on and on: these are ground of what makes something ethical , and these stand above analysis, above language's ability to "speak" as it does so well with principles and narratives. These are the foundation of ethics, the metaethical foundation of our existence.

Why is this so important? A very difficult question. One has to first affirm that it is properly reasoned thesis. If not, then say why. But then the inference, which is not that easy to see: if ethics has its ground outside of language, the what IS this "outside"? In religion, God stands outside. God is really an anthropomorphic concept that is put in place through ancient narratives that has two functions: to redeem and to consummate our existence absolutely, in eternity, if you will. But what is eternity? What is redemption and consummation? These depend on how interested you are. Moving forward with a question like this requires conviction. It would help reading Heidegger's Being and Time, section 64 of the second division, and beyond....but then, that would be a bit much...so if you are interested....

Please, can you give me a salient example where a decision has been made on good or evil that is not based on political expediency. — Pieter R van Wyk

You can see that the philosophical question of the nature of ethics moves to issues that are presupposed by politics.

Please explain. — 180 Proof

God is obviously not an empirical concept. Of course, there are images of God, but these carry no weight. They are what I call bad metaphysics: in order for an image to be representative OF something else, this latter has to show up somehow, so if all one has is an image with no referent, it is like a metaphor with that which is metaphorized entirely absent, leaving it dangling, a borrowed feature that has no counterpart in an intended actuality. There are those who try to defend physicalism this way, arguing that while physicality itself cannot be witnessed, descriptive talk about physical things has a metaphorical application, meaning that that over there in its appearance possesses some of the descriptive content of the appearance. The argument here says such an ascription would that require the actual thing features are being ascribed be witnessed itself; otherwise, all you end up with is a quality abstracted with no where to go, so to speak. Plainly put, if I say someone's daughter was a lamb while in my care, well, there has to be an actual person to receive the metaphor, otherwise, it simply makes no sense.
Really, I care nothing at all for the way people actually believe. Ideas have to make prima facie sense at least to be considered. The point being that if one thinks God is just some composite of things found in ancient thinking, then philosophy doesn't waste its time with it. God might as well be the Easter bunny. I take the concept seriously because God is a term that belongs to religion, and religion, once divested of its metaphors, that is, all the descriptive vocabulary, possesses something that survives this "reductive" move, and this is metaphysics and ethics, or metaethics. Religion is essentially metaethics.

To argue this out requires enough interest to pursue it. That would be up to you.

What do you mean by "God is a moral concept"? (or by "moral concept' itself?)