Surely there must be a reason not to murder, else what makes it wrong? — Hanover

The fact that it is, at the very least, a radically antisocial act? Would you not consider it wrong if any social animal killed its fellows?

Alright, so for all here who have settled upon relativistic morality, explain the basis of your moral outrage against the rapist and why I should find your reasons compelling. — Hanover

It hurts to think of women I know being raped. I just extrapolate out from there. It's a feeling with a "no" at the center of it.

Indeed. Ethics are either a code of conduct set by a culture, based on values, traditions and evolving attitudes, or they are handed down by a transcendent source - (deity or idealism).

What are the other options? Does virtue ethics operate in the context of cultural values interacting with those of the individual?

Such a self-deprecating remark as you make above is either a sample of false humility (which is offputting), or just a plain declaration of incompetence (which is also offputting). — baker

All I'm saying, is I don't claim to be enlightened. Had enough of your sarcasm and constant jibes, baker.

The context was that I was arguing that there is such a thing as a higher truth. The question was, how do you know that? How can you demonstrate it? To which I replied with reference to the idea that in the 'perennial philosophy', there is the figure of the sage, 'one who knows by virtue of the kind of human they are'. I firmly believe that is true, although in saying that, I'm not claiming to be a sage. So it amounts to acknowledging that no, I can't really demonstrate it 'objectively' even if I have the conviction that it's true. This usually then leads to the conclusion that it's only a matter of 'faith', of 'believing without evidence' - because the 'testimony of sages' and the annals of spiritual philosophy are all simply a matter of faith, not scientifically demonstrable. Thereby falling right back into the false dichotomy which characterises modern philosophy, that there is what is scientifically demonstrable and objectively verifiable, and anything else, no matter whether it's noble or profound, must always be a matter of personal conviction.

Ethics are either a code of conduct set by a culture, based on values, traditions and evolving attitudes, or they are handed down by a transcendent source - (deity or idealism).

What are the other options? Does virtue ethics operate in the context of cultural values interacting with those of the individual? — Tom Storm

Other options? Perhaps, since we don't see other social animals murdering their fellows, there is also, at least in regard to murder, an instinctive anti-disposition. Should we think of anyone capable of murder as being somehow radically disordered?

I'm not clear on what your question regarding virtue ethics is; do you want to elaborate?

I think that's a fair summary. I certainly struggle with the idea of people claiming to have some kind of innate knowledge of the numinous. And it seems to me there isn't a position going you couldn't justify using such a claim. So as a way of uncovering truth or reliable knowledge, I consider it fairly dire. But I am not saying it is false... :wink:

Other options? Perhaps, since we don't see other social animals murdering their fellows, there is also, at least in regard to murder, an instinctive anti-disposition. Should we think of anyone capable of murder as being somehow radically disordered? — Janus

I wonder if our capacity for atrocities is simply the shadow side of our intellect.

It's understood chimps murder. They also patrol their boundaries and tear apart intruders. Dianne Fossey documented this and it shocked her.

Nature itself seem radically disordered - a suburban backyard is a bloodbath - insects and animals eat each other alive. Even the idea that food means eating another living thing seems perverse.

In relation to virtue ethics, I was pondering if this might be a third option as a source of ethical behavior or is it just an example of cultural values being interpreted by an individual?

As this thread is about concepts of religion, I will provide this schematic again, which I've posted elsewhere recently, attributed to religious studies scholar Huston Smith.



He argues in his two books, Forgotten Truth and Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, that there are "levels of being" within which the vertical dimension corresponds to the axis of quality, providing a basis for ethics other than the merely quantitative, which characterise the 'scientistic' outlook.

These levels appear in both the "external" and the "internal" worlds, "higher" levels of reality without corresponding to "deeper" levels of reality within. On the very lowest level is the material/physical world, which depends for its existence on the higher levels. On the very highest/deepest level is the Infinite or Absolute (Dharmakaya in Buddhism.)

Basically this is an attempt to recover this understanding of reality from materialism, scientism, and "postmodernism." Smith does not attempt to adjudicate among religions (or philosophies), or spell out any of the important differences between world faiths, and does not intend to substitute a new religion for the specific faiths which already exist.

Nor should any such project be expected from a work that expressly focuses on what religions have in common. Far from showing that all religions are somehow "the same," Smith in fact shows that religions have a "common" core only at a sufficiently general level. What he shows, therefore, is not that there is really just one religion, but that the various religions of the world are actually agreeing and disagreeing about something real, something about which there really is a matter of fact, on the fundamentals of which many religions tend to concur while differing in numerous points of detail (including practice).

Suffice to say that the only dimension assumed to be real by the modern/post-modern attitude is the first, namely, the physical or natural domain, hence physicalism or naturalism as the dominant paradigm of secular culture. From within that horizon, any of the deeper/higher levels of being can only be depicted as matters of personal conviction.

I don't think there's much here for our consideration.

Kaufmann considered I and Thou a shameful performance in both style and content. In style the book invoked “the oracular tone of false prophets” and it was “more affected than honest.” Writing in a state of “irresistible enthusiasm,” Buber lacked the critical distance needed to critique and revise his own formulations. His conception of the I-It was a “Manichean insult” while his conception of the I-Thou was “rashly romantic and ecstatic,” and Buber “mistook deep emotional stirrings for revelation.” (Kaufmann [1983] pp. 28–33). The preponderance in Buber’s writings of rhetorical figures, such as “experience,” “realization,” “revelation,” “presence” and “encounter,” and his predilection for utopian political programs such as anarchism, socialism, and a bi-national solution to the intractable national conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, are in line with a vagueness in his philosophical writing that often renders Buber’s thought suggestive, but elusive. Similar criticisms apply to Buber’s claim that language has the power to reveal divine presence or uncover Being. — SEP

But go aead, if you think it worth your while.

Alright, so for all here who have settled upon relativistic morality, explain the basis of your moral outrage against the rapist and why I should find your reasons compelling. — Hanover

If you do not find rape repellent, then that is about you, not about rape. If you need an argument to convict you that you ought not do such things, you are morally bankrupt.

Thereby falling right back into the false dichotomy which characterises modern philosophy, that there is what is scientifically demonstrable and objectively verifiable, and anything else, no matter whether it's noble or profound, must always be a matter of personal conviction. — Wayfarer

What to call it if not (informed) personal conviction? And what's so awful about (informed) personal conviction?

I'm sure most scientists also have their pet (informed) personal convictions...

I wonder if our capacity for atrocities is simply the shadow side of our intellect.

It's understood chimps murder. They also patrol their boundaries and tear apart intruders. Dianne Fossey documented this and it shocked her.

Nature itself seem radically disordered - a suburban backyard is a bloodbath - insects and animals eat each other alive. Even the idea that food means eating another living thing seems perverse.

In relation to virtue ethics, I was pondering if this might be a third option as a source of ethical behavior or is it just an example of cultural values being interpreted by an individual? — Tom Storm

We all have intellects, but by no means all of us have a capacity for atrocities; at least not self-motivated atrocities.

Do chimps murder others of their own troop?

Eating others is necessary; it is part and parcel of the natural order; so I don't see it as disordered; it is, I think, by mere definition, not disordered.

I am not very familiar with the idea and tenets of virtue ethics, so I am probably the wrong person to ask about that question. I will say that I think all our principles and beliefs are pretty much examples of cultural values being interpreted by individuals.

I don't think there's much here for our consideration. — Banno

Your call. It's just an idea. If Kaufman and the SEP don't care for it, I suppose it's some kind of bunk.

Or is that more of a religious view?


Yes, Buber has been criticized by other philosophers. But I thought the I-Thou idea might be helpful.

It hurts to think of women I know being raped. I just extrapolate out from there. It's a feeling with a "no" at the center of it. — frank

Emotivism then? And if I don't share those emotions, then what's bad to you is good to me and there is no one correct answer? Sort of like vanilla ice cream is bad to me but good to you.

I don't think there's much here for our consideration. — Banno

But certainly the notion of the sacred and of the sacralizing power of the human mind is as stable a starting point as any for this sort of dialogue.

What to call it if not (informed) personal conviction? And what's so awful about (informed) personal conviction? — ZzzoneiroCosm

It's not that it's awful or wrong, but that it subjectivises ethics. They become a matter of choice rather than being grounded in anything beyond oneself, although that's also one of the consequences of pluralism.

By the way, with respect to the 'I-Thou' relationship - I have the idea that prior to the advent of modernity, this defined our whole relationship with nature herself. Because nature was seen as the creation of God, then one's relationship to it was more of 'I-Thou' than 'I-it'. The world couldn't be seen as simply an array of things being acted on by physical forces but was the expression of intention. The loss of that sense is what was referred to be Max Weber as the Disenchantment (which is kind of the flip side of the Enlightenment.)

The world as it is, is the world as God sees it, not as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by the limitations of finitude, as by sin and ignorance. The more we can raise ourselves in the scale of being, the more will our ideas about God and the world correspond to the reality. "Such as men themselves are, such will God Himself seem to them to be," says John Smith, the English Platonist. Origen, too, says that those whom Judas led to seize Jesus did not know who He was, for the darkness of their own souls was projected on His features. And Dante, in a very beautiful passage, says that he felt that he was rising into a higher circle, because he saw Beatrice's face becoming more beautiful. — Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism

Because nature was seen as the creation of God, then one's relationship to it was more of 'I-Thou' than 'I-it'. The world couldn't be seen as simply an array of things being acted on by physical forces but was the expression of intention. The loss of that sense is what was referred to be Max Weber as the Disenchantment (which is kind of the flip side of the Enlightenment.) — Wayfarer

So then we might examine an historical It-ification of the Thou....

I'll check out that Weber reference, thanks.

We all have intellects, but by no means all of us have a capacity for atrocities; at least not self-motivated atrocities.

Do chimps murder others of their own troop?

Eating others is necessary; it is part and parcel of the natural order; so I don't see it as disordered; it is, I think, by mere definition, not disordered.

I am not very familiar with the idea and tenets of virtue ethics, so I am probably the wrong person to ask about that question. I will say that I think all our principles and beliefs are pretty much examples of cultural values being interpreted by individuals. — Janus

I think almost everyone has the capacity for atrocity. It simply takes the 'right' situation or triggers - war; holocausts; dictatorships, extremes of poverty, prison...

Yes, chimps beat, kill and sometimes cannibalize from their own tribe.

Eating other living things may be 'necessary' (although people overlay ethical veganism) but I think a 'creation' wherein animals torture prey and eat it still living appears disordered and perverse to me. The fact something is natural doesn't give it a free pass...

I think you are right about cultural values.

If you do not find rape repellent, then that is about you, not about rape. If you need an argument to convict you that you ought not do such things, you are morally bankrupt. — Banno

This makes no sense.

You've been very clear that there are no objective goods and evils, but just competing points of view. So then a guy comes along celebrating the joys of rape, and you can't tell him rape is wrong, but only that he's defective because he doesn't intuitively know that rape is wrong, even though you just got through saying rape isn't wrong in an absolute way.

This is just to say that a logical consequence of relativistic ethics is that you can't tell me why I'm wrong without imposing an absolute standard on me, or else you'll forever be respecting my point of view.

The rape example is an extreme one, but there are similar real life ones. 200 years ago people were enslaved by people who were otherwise moral but didn't understand why slavery was wrong. They were wrong even though the world thought them right. Surely the abolitionists had better arguments than just to yell "you guys are morally bankrupt." They had to be relying upon some standard of righteousness that they believed transcended their personal opinion or else they'd have just been involved in a power struggle, wanting their morality to be substituted for the current system, with neither more or objectively better than the other.

The fact that it is, at the very least, a radically antisocial act? Would you not consider it wrong if any social animal killed its fellows? — Janus

I don't attribute morality to two dogs that fight to the death or to two rams who fight to the death over an ewe.

Sure, the social order is set by what the culture determines as valuable. If a rights based view, or a religious morality predominates, the order is likely to reflect those values. And those values may shift as the culture changes. — Tom Storm

Are you taking the position then that morality is determined by time and place and that slavery was good when it was accepted?

So then a guy comes along celebrating the joys of rape, and you can't tell him rape is wrong — Hanover

Yep, this is a frequently made argument (as you know) and there are probably just two responses.

1) Yes, you're right. There is nothing objective. Sorry about that. It is simply an individual/culture holding subjectively derived values. But humans, in the interest of cooperation and peace, tend not to commit crimes against each other. We are a eusocial species. We build social harmony. And we have prisons for those who don't care. (heavily simplified answer)

2) We can set the goal of the flourishing of conscious creatures as the overarching ethical principle for human behavior. Now we can evaluate our actions on the basis of how this goal can be best supported. No doubt with endless debate.

In both instances we have reasons to condemn the rapist. And with more powerful arguments than 'god says so.'

Can you demonstrate an objective morality?

Are you taking the position then that morality is determined by time and place and that slavery was good when it was accepted? — Hanover

Who are you, Matt Dillahunty?

See answer above.

Emotivism then? And if I don't share those emotions, then what's bad to you is good to me and there is no one correct answer? — Hanover

Jesus' answer was that all of the law means one thing: have love.

The Neoplatonists continued that theme with: "Love and do what you will."

The basic idea is that by loving, you come closer to your basic nature. If you don't have love, it's because you don't love yourself.

I'm partly Neoplatonic and partly profoundly nihilist. Strangely enough, the two blend pretty well.

So you accept a law from a higher power?

Belief in a morality that transcends time and place requires belief in some kind of "afterlife" (such as in the sense of the Christian afterlife, the Hindu reincarnation, or Buddhist rebirth).

Without God's judgment or karma, the notion of justice doesn't apply, and without justice, morality is unintelligible. — baker

This is idiosyncratic to certain religions, but not logically dictated.

Judaic views vary, although the afterlife is not posited for the purposes of meting out eternal rewards and punishments. It is used to purge one of sin in order to return the person to his holy state. It is a time of atonement, not punishment, and not to exceed 12 months (cool, right?).

The point being that doing good can be for that sake of doing good alone, despite how other models might handle sin.

So you accept a law from a higher power? — frank

Digression - Even if we were to accept a law from a higher power as theoretically possible, how would we demonstrate what that law is and what that higher power is? Is this view of any use? Cannot any position be justified as the will (or law) of some higher power?

how would we demonstrate what that law is and what that higher power is? — Tom Storm

There was this one time where God zapped it into some pieces of stone, whereupon the guy carrying them threw them down on the ground and busted them. They swept up the pieces and put them in the Arc of the Covenant.

It's a pretty amazing story. It's etched on everybody's psyche. It's our epic.

Cannot any position be justified as the will (or law) of some higher power? — Tom Storm

Sure. There were these Mormons who believed God spoke directly to them. One heard God say he should kill his wife, so he did.

That story sucks. It's not etched on anybody's psyche.

I didn't mean morally wrong. I meant wrong in the sense of disordered.

both instances we have reasons to condemn the rapist. And with more powerful arguments than 'god says so.'

Can you demonstrate an objective morality? — Tom Storm

You've just presented an objective basis for determining morality. You're not arguing relatavism any more.

If "flourishing" is the objective goal, you've got to offer some reason why. If it is just because it is, that is equivalent to "god says so."

I think almost everyone has the capacity for atrocity. It simply takes the 'right' situation or triggers - war; holocausts; dictatorships, extremes of poverty, prison... — Tom Storm

I agree and hence the caveat "self-motivated atrocities", which was meant to make the distinction from being sucked into mob thinking or performing an atrocious duty out of fear, and so on.

The fact something is natural doesn't give it a free pass... — Tom Storm

"Free pass" just according to you, or are you invoking the idea of higher authority? If it is just you; I have to say the idea of an individual disapproving of nature seems somehow absurd.

Yes, chimps beat, kill and sometimes cannibalize from their own tribe. — Tom Storm

I wasn't aware of that. I searched and could not find any reference to that behavior. Can you point me to one?