• Leontiskos
    4.8k
    Even your take imports that to ignore a NHO would be 'wrong'.AmadeusD

    Part of what that thread is getting at is this. Everyone takes themselves to be doing and seeking things that are right and not wrong, good and not bad. A non-hypothetical ought-judgment is always about what ought to be done, and you could say that what ought to be done is the right thing to do. When we critique ourselves or experience regrets, we are judging that the action we thought was right was in fact wrong; or the action we thought was good was in fact bad; or the action we thought ought to be done in fact oughtn't have been done. That's the basis of morality, and everyone is engaged in it. A categorical/exceptionless norm is just a special kind of moral premise, one that not everyone accepts.* Nevertheless, to say, "I don't believe in morality because I don't believe in categorical/exceptionless norms," is not right, given that morality is not reducible to categorical/exceptionless norms. Just because someone is fascinated or even obsessed with the notion of categorical/exceptionless norms does not mean that this is all morality is.

    Maybe the easiest way to see this is to note that civil law is a moral construct which nevertheless does not necessarily contain categorical/exceptionless norms.

    * And moral judgments derived from categorical/exceptionless norms are just one species of moral judgments / non-hypothetical ought-judgments.
  • Bob Ross
    2.3k


    As far as I can tell, genuinely, you believe 'faith' has a plurality of meanings and that it has to do with (1) trust and (2) believing despite the evidence.

    Do you explain, predict, and revise, Investigate the objection, and use Assertive/testable claims? Then you are doing science.

    In my example, it was of a person who isn’t doing the science: it is laymen that is believing that the information from the article(s) are true. This is a red herring.

    DO you express loyalty, identity, hope, defend against the objection, and use declaratives, commissives, and performatives? Then that's not science.

    Notwithstanding that science itself requires faith, the laymen, when believing the article about black holes, is trusting the source as credible information and, yes, is not doing science.

    Science or faith?

    This is a false dichotomy under my view, but you already know that. What I was asking is that if you believe that faith has to do with trust, and that’s what you said before, then a person that believes something about black holes because they find an article to be a credible source of information on the topic is believing on “faith”—not “science”.
  • Bob Ross
    2.3k


    Yes, but they have every reason to believe that the currently accepted canon of scientific knowledge is based on actual observation, experiment and honest and accurate reporting by scientists. That this is so is evidenced by the great advances in technologies we see all around us.

    This is just a giant begging of the question. My point was that your beliefs about scientific propositions are largely faith-based, whether you like it or not, just like how religious propositions are largely faith-based. Now whether or not the evidence supporting religious propositions are as robust and plausible than the evidence for science is a separate question.

    The source of knowledge for established science is observation and experiment.

    The source of knowledge for you establishing scientific truths as true is evidence about whether or not to trust the authorities that purport the scientific facts. This is true for religion as well.

    Now:

    The question is as to what is the source contained in the religious texts if not faith in revelation? Would you call that knowledge?

    Not all of religious truths are purely revelation; but for the ones that are this would require that one believes that the witnesses of the revelations are credible to be testifying to what they saw and that the evidence, empirically and historically, surrounding the event point sufficiently to the plausibility of the event being revelation.

    Am I saying that I believe there are good reasons to believe in that divine revelation has happened? No. What I am saying is that the kind of belief you formulated about science is the same kind of belief that religious people formulate about their religious views. The conversation shifts from “religion is about this blind faith while science is about the scientific method” to “both scientific and religious knowledge that I could have are faith-based by-at-large, but is there good evidence for either?”. Instead of debating faith vs. science we correctly thereby pivot into a discussion about the evidence for each.

    Would you say it is based on evidence or logic?

    Both involve evidence and logic: that’s never been unique to science—ever. There’s tons of studies outside of religion that are also based on evidence and logic—history, ethics, logic, math, psychology, etc.

    Is that your "evidence"? That being homosexual is a bad orientation because it goes against the "nature qua essence of a human"? Are you an expert on human nature and the essence of being human, Bob? You don't think that might be a tad presumptuous?

    I think you mean it doesn't appeal to you, and that's fine. It's the next step of universalizing what doesn't appeal to you personally where you go wrong.

    It's been sad to watch your thinking going downhill, Bob.

    Lol. I am an Aristotelian/Thomist on ethics. To get into this, we would have to get into each other’s metaethical, normative ethical, and applied ethical positions; and I am not sure you are open to that.

    Are you a moral realist?
  • Bob Ross
    2.3k


    Agnosticism traditionally refers to the suspension of judgment, and your etymological-style definition is a rather new emergence in colloquial spheres. At the end of the day, I don't really care as long as the terms are clarified at the beginning of the discussion.
  • Leontiskos
    4.8k
    Yes, but they have every reason to believe that the currently accepted canon of scientific knowledge is based on actual observation, experiment and honest and accurate reporting by scientists.Janus

    Everyone who has faith in an authority has reasons to believe the authority is credible. No one who has faith in an authority lacks reasons to believe the authority is credible.

    Else, see where I critique in detail the basis you gave for considering some faith-assents to be less faith-based.
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    Nevertheless, to say, "I don't believe in morality because I don't believe in categorical/exceptionless norms," is not right, given that morality is not reducible to categorical/exceptionless norms.Leontiskos

    Very fair, but that isn't my position. My position is that "wrong" and "right" are ambiguous, amorphous and probably indefinable terms which create a problem for morality to do what it purports to do. Your concept is askance from this, but it seems tp want the same security people find in :

    takes themselves to be doing and seeking things that are right and not wrong, good and not badLeontiskos

    you could say that what ought to be done is the right thing to doLeontiskos

    You could and I assume that's the transition your system wants to make. But that is not the way 'right' tends to be used, so I think a theory which violates the normal use of these words can't be helpful. Perhaps that's where my back is up.. I can't relate to it, at all, despite it being relatively sound in form. It doens't speak to me about right and wrong, and therefore doesn't seem to be a moral system. It's a system for making decisions based on data towards what can, in most instances, be considered arbitrary ends. I know you feel that a collective agreement shifts that. I do not, so impasse there for sure .
  • Leontiskos
    4.8k
    Very fair, but that isn't my position. My position is that "wrong" and "right" are ambiguous, amorphous and probably indefinable terms which create a problem for morality to do what it purports to do. Your concept is askance from this, but it seems tp want the same security people find in :AmadeusD

    I'm pretty confident in my ability to persuade someone regarding moral truths (I might begin with things like pain, suffering, empathy, the Golden Rule etc.). In a highly speculative context like TPF, where everyone is running around claiming they don't believe in morality, I tend to show them that they do actually believe in it, regardless of how they conceive of it. For example, in my recent thread hardly anyone claimed that racism is not wrong. I think once we see that morality pertains to action and action is inevitable, then it is easy to see how morality is inevitable.

    My position is that "wrong" and "right" are ambiguous, amorphous and probably indefinable terms which create a problem for morality to do what it purports to do.AmadeusD

    Well, this goes back to my claim that morality has force, and if something does not exist or is incoherent then it can have no force. You might like the chat between Sam Harris and Tom Holland that I posted recently. If Holland is even half-right then Christianity dramatically overhauled the moral conscience of the West. So I want to say that it does what it purports to do, even if you question how exactly it does it.

    I can't relate to it, at all, despite it being relatively sound in form. It doens't speak to me about right and wrong, and therefore doesn't seem to be a moral system. It's a system for making decisions based on data towards what can, in most instances, be considered arbitrary ends. I know you feel that a collective agreement shifts that. I do not, so impasse there for sure .AmadeusD

    I think you are right that my thread does not present a moral system, in the sense of Aristotelian ethics or Utilitarianism or Kantian deontology, or something like that. Instead, it's about the breadth of the moral sphere - it's about which actions are generically moral and which actions aren't.

    It's more like this. Suppose someone claims that colors do not exist. The thread is like arguing that everyone thinks colors exist, even those who claim that they do not exist. Excepting those with visual problems, everyone gets up in the morning and thinks they see color. Maybe it doesn't, but the fact that everyone, including my potential interlocutor, thinks it does apparently bears on the question. Even if everyone sees somewhat different colors, it still seems like color exists.

    I suspect that even you, when you look back on a bad mistake you've made in life, could catch yourself half-consciously saying, "That was the wrong thing to do." If so, then I'd say you used the "unintelligible" word in a perfectly ordinary and intelligible way, morally judging a past action.
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    So you want to criticize people who use the words "right" and "wrong," because you think the words are meaningless. And then when I avoid using these words that you deem to be meaningless, you criticize me for not using them? It seems like you've erected a game where I lose by default even before I begin.Leontiskos

    No, no. People use those words and I have no criticism of that. I criticise using those words to defend a moral theory (you have neglected this, which has its own problems, but not why the above is occurring).
    When you avoid using them, I want to know why you think this is 'moral' if it doesn't have to do with right and wrong (our impasse addressed in my response immediately prior in the other thread. It is a plain disagreement in terms I think).

    What "conception"?Leontiskos

    That it is the tension, and systems for resolving tension, between right and wrong. That is a conception, regardless of whether it has particular meaning. I do not know how your objections here get off the ground. I don't defend that conception as a coherent theory - it just, plain and simple, is what people mean when they speak about morality. It is defined as such in several places.

    then we have no candidate which could exist or not exist.Leontiskos

    What? No. That I don't understand this the way those who defend that conception do has nothing to do with whether it exists. It exists, and is 'used' constantly by most people. That is what people mean when they say 'moral'. It is 'right'. What they mean you are free to interrogate. I did, found it wanting, and rejected it as a coherent theory. So, the option remains that morality doesn't exist on those terms. I take it you more-or-less feel the same and want to propose a system on other terms. That's fine. No one will understand you to be talking about morality - as I clearly do not.

    Cambridge entryLeontiskos

    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/morality here it is, and the first entry contains exactly my conception in slightly more verbose terms. I take things like "action" or "behaviour" are built into the discussion and do not need re-stating every time.

    What is its fatal flaw? That it doesn't mean anything?Leontiskos

    That right and wrong are insufficiently clear to be useful for the definition of morality. I had thought, in several places, this was explicitly clear. I think it needs to be clarified again:
    My system of morality is not something you have asked about. What i consider right and wrong is bespoke, as I take it to be for everyone. That doesn't mean people's 'right' can't overlap, or that the ydon't regularly do so - that is how morality works.
    But I couldn't possibly argue that anyone else need care what I think. If right and wrong are just so, no theory can move someone. That is my contention. We just do our best to find people with whom our bespoke boundaries work well. There is some force in this - societies have a profound effect on what people think is right and wrong, personally. But there are no universals there, imo.

    First note that the claim, "That's [inadmissible]" is a NH, and every negative NH entails the claim, "You should not do that."Leontiskos

    Hmmm, it doesn't seem to prima facie as I see it. "That's inadmissible" is a pure observation. There is no imperative in that statement. There is, hiding, the potential for the next move to be prescriptive. This is purely descriptive. That utterance doesn't even require that someone intended to admit the item in question. Just that someone noted it wasn't admissible. Herein lies the problem with almost all 'ought's, even NH ones. "That's inadmissible. Don't attempt to admit it, as you will be admonished by the court and waste your client's money" for instance. I might just disagree that it's inadmissible. I disagreed with the Egyptian gentleman in his assessment of my drinking water in Egypt. But in any case, there's nothing in it that makes any action 'correct' or 'right' other than in terms of some arbitrary end (other than, as noted, death).
    Maybe I find it extremely hard to understand where the notion that these sorts of values are universal comes from, or that shared values provides morality per se, rather than a working execution or moral concepts which may be quite disparate (and in fact, need be given the ambiguity of 'right' and 'wrong'. But there's intuition there).
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    which actions are generically moral and which actions aren't.Leontiskos

    yeah, nice. And I think the fatal objection here is that this isn't how morality is thought of. It is better, though, i'll absolutely give you that.

    it still seems like color exists.Leontiskos

    This is a good analogy. And I think its perfectly parallel with morality. I do not think colours exist in the sense that they inhere in objects. I also do not think morality exists in that it inheres in the universe. We make our own, and you want a universal one (i have already admitted I do think morality exists, but on different terms than universal ones).

    I suspect that even you, when you look back on a bad mistake you've made in life, could catch yourself half-consciously saying, "That was the wrong thing to do."Leontiskos

    Unhelpful is probably as far as I can get there. "bad" in terms of having been mistaken, perhaps. But not a moral bad or wrong on any of yours, mine or the general conception of moral.
  • Banno
    28k
    One more time, then.

    You have simply equated faith and trust in authority, then argued that every instance of trust in authority must thereby be an instance of faith.

    A bullshit argument.

    Faith involves trust but is not just trust. It includes something more. I've set this out in detail in my previous posts.

    The mark of faith is that when challenged, one's commitment is not to be subject to reevaluation, but to be defended.

    The mark of rationality and science is when challenged, not to simply defend, but reevaluating and reassessing one's commitment.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4k


    "Good" is predicated relative to ends. Sustaining their own life is, in general, an end all humans (and all organisms) share. However, it is not the only end sought by people, and other ends might be prioritized above survival. In the case of suicides, an end to suffering is generally sought as a good that is more desirable than life. Likewise, people sacrifice themselves for various causes, just as individual bees will sacrifice themselves when their hive is under attack, or as many mammalian mothers will engage in fights they have little success of winning to defend their young.

    Ethics as the study of ends can look to ends sought by most people, or ends sought by man by nature. But there is the question: "are these natural or common ends themselves aligned to any higher good?"

    I think Aristotle and others who have followed him can make a strong case that eudaimonia (flourishing/happiness) is a unifying end (and one that incorporates shared, social/common goods). But I would say most anti-realists (and this certainly has been the case in this thread) make the mistake of jumping immediately to trying to orient all ends to a poorly defined highest good as a sui generis "moral good." Everything then becomes an exercise is "debunking" this sui generis "moral good" and "ethical ought."

    For example, the person who suffers and wants to die offers a counterexample to "poison water is bad." So too, if we claim that: "it is bad for children to have heavy metals dumped into their water," is a fact of medical science that has clear relevance to human flourishing, the counterexample can be offered up: "but what if some insane dictator ordered that every child have their blood tested and then tortured and enslaved all of those with lead and mercury levels that were too low?"

    But moral realism doesn't require that good is predicated univocaly, or that there be some sort of "moral calculus" by which different things can be rated in terms of "goodness points." This is a fever dream of an ethics that has already become incoherent.

    More to the point, such debunking always seems to end up relying on the fact that people do recognize value, that they are aware of facts about human flourishing. The suicide counter-example relies on the value-laden fact that suffering is bad and that people might rationally seek death as an ends to avoid it. Otherwise, there would be no reason to say that "poison water might be good for some people," unless we turn to begging the question and claiming that "good" is just whatever people currently desire (i.e. it is just an expression of desire/emotion). Likewise, the heavy metals counter example relies on the value-laden fact that being enslaved and tortured is even less conducive to human flourishing than heavy metal poisoning.

    If I want to die, I might very well seek out poisonous beverages.

    Of course, it is only obvious that this makes poisonous beverages good in some cases if one has already assumed that "good" is equivalent with "what is currently desired." In the West, one of the great figures in ethics, Socrates, does drink poison. He does so in pursuit of a higher end. It is presumably that this end is truly choiceworthy that makes the act good, not that he wants to drink the poison. If simply wanting to drink poison made it good for us, then the jilted lover who impulsively drinks poison to get back at the person who spurned them would be equally as wise as Socrates. Socrates and Madame Bovary would be the same sort of story, the story of a rational actor maximizing their utility based on the information available to them. Sydney Carton's reflection upon choosing to sacrifice himself to save another, that "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known," in Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" has a much different meaning if it is simply the standard operating procedure of Homo oecononimicus.

    My hunch is that moral anti-realism has become so popular because of the positive indoctrination in liberalism's anthropology that most people growing up in the West receive. Liberty is the voluntarist "capacity to do what one wants." Skepticism about ultimate aims and tolerance are pillars of the ideology. These two ideas combine to give the individual special epistemic status, if not outright infallibility vis-á-vis their own best interests (so long as they are "adults" and aren't suffering from "severe mental illness," two terms that are also subject to a lot of shaping by liberal anthropology).
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4k


    Faith involves trust but is not just trust. It includes something more. I've set this out in detail in my previous posts.

    The mark of faith is that when challenged, one's commitment is not to be subject to reevaluation, but to be defended.

    The mark of rationality and science is when challenged, not to simply defend, but reevaluating and reassessing one's commitment.

    This strikes me as a deficient definition. For one, it would imply that Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, etc. must have been motivated by a lack of faith because their experiences led to them challenging their existing religious beliefs and obedience to religious authority. Likewise, this would imply that when a Muslim converts to Christianity, or when Christians change denominations, this move should involve a decrease in faith.

    Now, to be sure, such changes do involve a lack of faith in the original tradition, denomination, etc. However, one often hears of cases like a lukewarm Christian converting to Islam and becoming much more dedicated to the spiritual life in the process (or vice versa). This is a move from faith to greater faith (often based on evidence).

    Moreover, in Martin Luther's case we have a clear example of someone who, when faced with evidence that challenged his beliefs (e.g. his consequential trip to Rome, his observation of how indulgences were handled locally, his study of Scripture and St. Augustine, etc.) did not defend those beliefs, but rather, as you say: "rationally reconsidered them." Luther's rebellion was not a matter of losing or gaining faith, so much as a reconsideration of what he thought faith implied.

    Indeed, the hallmark of Western theology during and after the Reformation was an extreme focus on evidence and a discursive justification of warrant. This is how theology often became focused on collecting doctrinal "proof texts" to support beliefs, or on signs and wonders to give credence to some tradition. Likewise, Calvin wasn't led to TULIP through a refusal to countenance evidence contrary to his faith, but rather by a forensic analysis of the evidence, which to him implied TULIP.

    Probably the most common critique that Eastern Christians level against the inheritors of Latin Christendom is that they are too focused on evidence, discursive justification, forensic analysis, and legalism. We can see this sort of issue replicated today in terms of "critical readings" of Scripture in Western theology. Jean-Claude Larchet is representative of the Eastern tradition when he argues that critical readings are deficient because their extreme focus on forensic analysis and the methodologies of the secular academy lead to a way of reading Scripture that destroys the unity of the text.

    Likewise, argument against Protestantism on historical grounds, that its "fruit" has been a tremendous splintering of the church into thousands of different heresies and the dominance of athiesm in its old heartland, are arguments based on observation (often supported with statistics and historical analysis).

    Similarly, the fixing of the Jewish and Christian Canons involved a lot of appeals to evidence and discursive justification.
  • Leontiskos
    4.8k
    My system of morality is not something you have asked about. What i consider right and wrong is bespoke, as I take it to be for everyone. That doesn't mean people's 'right' can't overlap, or that the ydon't regularly do so - that is how morality works.
    But I couldn't possibly argue that anyone else need care what I think. If right and wrong are just so, no theory can move someone. That is my contention. We just do our best to find people with whom our bespoke boundaries work well. There is some force in this - societies have a profound effect on what people think is right and wrong, personally. But there are no universals there, imo.
    AmadeusD

    Okay, interesting. To be honest, I was not at all expecting you to admit that you possess a “moral system,” and therefore I had not thought to ask.

    Your thesis here seems to be that you have a moral system and your wife has a moral system and everyone else has a moral system, and that none of these moral systems really interact with or shape one another (e.g. you say the Christian and the Muslim have different values and that's that). For example, you presumably don't think moral argument is really possible. This is actually an important support for your “arbitrariness” notion, and I think it is incorrect. Let’s revisit my argument and example:

    1c. We all make non-hypothetical ought-judgments (NHs for short - plural)
    2c. Our NHs are able to be evaluated, both by ourselves in retrospect, and by others
    3c. These evaluations are themselves NHs
    4c. We respect these evaluative NHs, or at least some of them
    5c. Therefore, at least some evaluative NHs have force
    6c. Therefore, the "rhymes and reasons" are not arbitrary

    [...]

    A) You decide to drink water, raising it to your lips (1c)
    B) A complete stranger tells you not to drink the water (2c, 3c, 5c)
    C) You decide not to drink the water, or at the very least you give the stranger's utterance due consideration (4c)
    Leontiskos

    Note that the example is precisely about (moral) interaction between moral systems or moral agents. (A), (B), and (C) each represent a different NH, and there is a causal connection or influence from one to the next. What this means is that our moral systems are not quarantined off each from the other. When (A) leads to (B) and (B) leads to (C) you and the “Egyptian” are influencing each other’s actions and moral judgments. Even if (C2) is substituted where you instead decide to drink the water, (C2) is still a different NH than (A) given that (C2) includes the consideration of (B) whereas (A) does not.

    The “respect” and “force” of 4c and 5c represent transitions between NHs and considerations that inform NHs. If the “rhymes and reasons” were arbitrary then none of this interaction between moral systems would be possible, and there would be no ‘respect’ or ‘force’.

    Specifically, my contention is that <If there were no substantially shared values, then moral persuasion and influence between individuals would be impossible; But it is not impossible; Therefore, there must be substantially shared values>.

    I don't defend that conception as a coherent theory - it just, plain and simple, is what people mean when they speak about morality.AmadeusD

    I'm not convinced that something which is incoherent can be described as a unity. The only way to rigorously define a system which is thought to be incoherent is to delineate its contradictions. An incoherence is a mishmash, and thus if the description does not point up the mishmash it is not a description of an incoherent system.

    What? No. That I don't understand this the way those who defend that conception do has nothing to do with whether it exists. It exists, and is 'used' constantly by most people. That is what people mean when they say 'moral'. It is 'right'. What they mean you are free to interrogate. I did, found it wanting, and rejected it as a coherent theory.AmadeusD

    Continuing, an incoherent "thing" is not an (existent) thing at all. Instead it must be two or more existent things that contradict or fail to cohere with one another.

    I take it you more-or-less feel the same and want to propose a system on other terms. That's fine.AmadeusD

    Sort of. I think the complexity of morality can be reasonably construed as coherent. See for example Objection 3, which anticipates your position exactly.

    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/morality here it is, and the first entry contains exactly my conception in slightly more verbose terms.AmadeusD

    With respect, "A set of personal or social standards for good or bad behaviour and character," actually strikes me as considerably different than, "The debate between right and wrong."

    Hmmm, it doesn't seem to prima facie as I see it. "That's inadmissible" is a pure observation. There is no imperative in that statement. There is, hiding, the potential for the next move to be prescriptive. This is purely descriptive. That utterance doesn't even require that someone intended to admit the item in question. Just that someone noted it wasn't admissible.AmadeusD

    First, by [inadmissible] I was substituting for your own words, namely immoral/wrong/bad. Second, an NH need not be an imperative or a prescription. For example, when you regret a past action and judge that you should have acted otherwise, you are engaged in a non-hypothetical ought-judgment, but not an imperative or a prescription.

    Herein lies the problem with almost all 'ought's, even NH ones. "That's inadmissible. Don't attempt to admit it, as you will be admonished by the court and waste your client's money" for instance. I might just disagree that it's inadmissible. I disagreed with the Egyptian gentleman in his assessment of my drinking water in Egypt.AmadeusD

    Sure, and I've never disagreed with this.

    But in any case, there's nothing in it that makes any action 'correct' or 'right' other than in terms of some arbitrary end (other than, as noted, death).AmadeusD

    (A) requires that you think drinking water is right. (B) requires that the Egyptian thinks it is not right. (C) requires that you are persuaded that it is not right. (C2) requires that you are not persuaded that it is not right.

    (If you want you can substitute "the right thing to do" instead of "right".)

    Maybe I find it extremely hard to understand where the notion that these sorts of values are universal comes from, or that shared values provides morality per se, rather than a working execution or moral concepts which may be quite disparate (and in fact, need be given the ambiguity of 'right' and 'wrong'. But there's intuition there).AmadeusD

    Yes, and we could dive deep into Srap's skeptical response. A simpler approach might be to note that in (B) the man assumes a shared value (which is apparently assumed to be universal, given that you are complete strangers). And if you give his NH due consideration then you yourself are assuming a shared value (which is apparently assumed to be universal, given that you are complete strangers). Hence the analogy with color, where even the person who says there are no existent colors still believes in colors on another level.

    (Again, one could claim that the Egyptian never assumes a shared value and never utters a non-hypothetical ought-judgment, but only ever utters hypothetical ought-judgments. I don't think this is empirically true. I think humans are constantly engaged in NHs. I think NHs really exist.)
  • frank
    17.6k

    But guilt hurts, right? It can really hurt. Up to a point you can chose whether you're going to face it or not, but you can't make the guilt go away by changing your morals, right?
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    Your thesis here seems to be that you have a moral system and your wife has a moral system and everyone else has a moral system, and that none of these moral systems really interact with or shape one another (e.g. you say the Christian and the Muslim have different values and that's that)Leontiskos

    No quite, but that they do so brute. There's no particularly convincing principle that would ensure people are moved by anyone else's moral views, but to become closer to avoid rejection (I assume you would agree that this is visible in social groups whereby the opinion of the group prevents members from dissenting at risk of either ejection or abuse). There's development, but it seems lateral to me. So maybe I'm being a little hasty, and merely positing that moral progess isn't coherent.

    If the “rhymes and reasons” were arbitrary then none of this interaction between moral systems would be possibleLeontiskos

    This makes no sense to me. There's nothing in your argument that makes the agreement/disagreement non-arbitrary and prescriptive. Its a description of two independent systems happening to overlap. I understand that this creates what you're calling 'force' but it is plainly self-referential and it is your own system which is influencing you to give a toss about old mate's suggestion. I do thikn I've been over this though, so if we plum disagree that this creates what you're suggesting, I can't see we can go further.

    Specifically, my contention is that <If there were no substantially shared values, then moral persuasion and influence between individuals would be impossible; But it is not impossible; Therefore, there must be substantially shared values>.Leontiskos

    Ah. Well, i think that's silly. The first seems correct. The second is non sequitur in a sense. That we influence each other's values doesn't give me a reason to think there are any moral facts about the interactions. All we do is describe them, post-hoc. That could be wrong, but it is why I can't get on with the transition being made to the conclusion here. I agree, there are substantially shared values and I'd be an idiot to deny that - but that this makes interpersonal communication moral doesn't work for me. We can only predict people's responses to NHOs with respect to their pre-existing values. The "influence" you speak of only seems to occur in intellectual exchanges, not moral ones. And there, rarely, as this exchange is showing hehehe.

    I'm not convinced that something which is incoherent can be described as a unity. The only way to rigorously define an system which is thought to be incoherent is to delineate its contradictions. An incoherence is a mishmash, and thus if the description does not point up the mishmash it is not a description of an incoherent systemLeontiskos

    I have done so, though, plenty of times, throughout this exchange: The reliance on "right" and "wrong" are incoherent in a theory which requires that they are set by the theory itself. And this is described, at least in my version of morality, clearly. It seems implicit in the standard tellings ("system for delineating right and wrong" and all similarly-worded concepts).
    Basically, the tautology of a " moral 'right' " means that, while we can describe people's morality, as it occurs, we cannot predict it because these terms gives us nothing with which we could apply some rule/law/principle to aught but our own sense of morality. We can only predict it statistically. I do not think this provides us 'force' in the way you speak of it.
    With respect, "A set of personal or social standards for good or bad behaviour and character," actually strikes me as considerably different than, "The debate between right and wrong."Leontiskos

    Understandable. The former is simply the result of the latter, and given there is no universal moral system, that seems implicit, and hte only thing available for discussion. Perhaps I should have noted this.

    For example, when you regret a past action and judge that you should have acted otherwise, you are engaged in a non-hypothetical ought-judgment, but not an imperative or a prescription.Leontiskos

    That is plainly hypothetical?

    (A) requires that you think drinking water is right. (B) requires that the Egyptian thinks it is not right. (C) requires that you are persuaded that it is not right. (C2) requires that you are not persuaded that it is not right.Leontiskos

    I don't see this moving my comment on the structure of that exchange. B to C is a matter of fact. Would this apply to whether or not to go outside without an umbrella? Would you say that someone saying "Hey, its raining, take an umbrella" and you doing so, means that was a morally forceful suggestion? I don't, so I can't apply it here either (again, other than over a 'death'. So your (A) being simple, yeah, I think drinking water is good. Not poisoned water, though. So I want to avoid death, not poisoned water per se. I realise that's a bit recursive, but I think it illustrates that the point is the 'ought' is about avoiding death. If death isn't a possible outcome, then the suggestion is arbitrary in a moral sense (for me, and on
    my understanding of common conceptions)).

    And if you give his NH due consideration then you yourself are assuming a shared valueLeontiskos

    Or, I am considered their values as compared to mine and understanding whether or not, in the exact context, their value might be more practically effective. Is that still moral, to you?

    I think NHs really exist.Leontiskos

    As do I. just don't see them as moral propositions.

    you can't make the guilt go away by changing your morals, right?frank

    Yes. I was a sociopath for several years, partially to achieve this.
  • Leontiskos
    4.8k


    Right. I guess Banno's argument would be pretty good if faith-based assents were never altered. Except to believe that you would have to be living under a rock. Banno speaks of “bullshit arguments,” and yet his own arguments fall over like a feinting goat at the faintest movement of a mouse. No cow-tipping required. :smile:

    I don't believe Banno or @Janus are even attempting to give a clear definition of what faith is. Instead, they are using notions without clarifying what the idea of it is that we should use for the discussion. I agree that anyone that believes faith is belief despite the evidence is deploying a straw man of theism: I am just not sure if they are even committing themselves to that definition.Bob Ross

    Indeed. :up:

    Apologetics can be interesting when one has an interlocutor who has a sincere intellectual openness to the subject. When such an interlocutor is lacking it is helpful to supplement the exercise by reading an author who possesses the intellectual openness and subtlety of mind needed to genuinely explore such topics. Let me recommend a few such treatments, as I think you might enjoy that deeper intellectual stimulation.

    The first is Josef Pieper’s treatise on faith which I referenced at the end of <this post>, or else his longer book-length treatment on the same subject. Another is Joseph Ratzinger’s more existential and highly accessible treatment found in the opening chapters of his Introduction to Christianity. A third, more difficult text, is John Henry Newman’s Grammar of Assent, which Anthony Kenny calls a “classic of epistemology in its own right” that has “much to say of general philosophical interest about the nature of belief, in secular as well as religious contexts.” (Wittgenstein compared his On Certainty to Newman’s great work.) And then there is of course Aquinas’ justly famous treatments, particularly at the beginning of the Secundae Secondae of the Summa Theologiae. I am sure one could find other penetrating treatments of the subject, but those are a few that I have found valuable. I suspect you would resonate with Pieper more than the others at this stage of the game.
  • Leontiskos
    4.8k
    No quite, but that they do so brute. There's no particularly convincing principle that would ensure people are moved by anyone else's moral views, but to become closer to avoid rejection (I assume you would agree that this is visible in social groups whereby the opinion of the group prevents members from dissenting at risk of either ejection or abuse). There's development, but it seems lateral to me. So maybe I'm being a little hasty, and merely positing that moral progess isn't coherent.AmadeusD

    Tell me if this is this a fair characterization of your view. You seem to think that values (or else moral premises) are brute, in that they cannot be generated or corrupted. Everyone has them, but nothing guarantees that one person's set of values will overlap with another person's, and the values never change. So we can mutually influence people who have overlapping values, but we cannot mutually influence people who do not have overlapping values. ...Something like that?

    The first seems correct.AmadeusD

    Good, I agree.

    The second is non sequitur in a sense.AmadeusD

    The second clause is a premise, so it is not claimed to have followed from something.

    That we influence each other's values doesn't give me a reason to think there are any moral facts about the interactions.

    [...]

    That could be wrong, but it is why I can't get on with the transition being made to the conclusion here. I agree, there are substantially shared values and I'd be an idiot to deny that - but that this makes interpersonal communication moral doesn't work for me.
    AmadeusD

    The conclusion of my syllogism was, "Therefore, there must be substantially shared values." It sounds like you agree with the conclusion, but you think it does not lead to some other, unmentioned conclusion.

    The "influence" you speak of only seems to occur in intellectual exchanges, not moral ones. And there, rarely, as this exchange is showing hehehe.AmadeusD

    Well do you think moral influence occurs rarely or not at all? It can't be both.

    Edit: Sorry, I misread this. I guess I would want to know your criteria for determining whether moral influence has occurred.

    I have done so, though, plenty of times, throughout this exchange: The reliance on "right" and "wrong" are incoherent in a theory which requires that they are set by the theory itself.AmadeusD

    If you haven't shown the two or more parts that fail to cohere with one another, then I don't think you've shown anything to be incoherent. I am saying that if something is incoherent, then there must be two parts that can be shown to fail to cohere. Can you isolate those two parts and show why they fail to cohere? Or do you want to proffer an entirely different understanding of incoherence than the one I have offered?

    Understandable. The former is simply the result of the latter, and given there is no universal moral system, that seems implicit, and hte only thing available for discussion. Perhaps I should have noted this.AmadeusD

    Okay.

    That is plainly hypothetical?AmadeusD

    Do you think regrets are hypothetical? I give reasons for why I think they are not in my OP.

    I don't see this moving my comment on the structure of that exchange. B to C is a matter of fact.AmadeusD

    I mean, he changed your mind about what the right action is. You thought it was right (or at least permissible) to drink the water, and he led you to believe that it is not right (i.e. not the right thing to do). You told me that we need to use words like "right" and "wrong" if we are to talk about morality, and now I am using those words. So given the criterion you provided, it seems that when you are persuaded that it is not right to drink the water you have been morally persuaded (especially given that this issue potentially bears on death, and therefore fulfills the criterion you add below).

    Would you say that someone saying "Hey, its raining, take an umbrella" and you doing so, means that was a morally forceful suggestion? I don'tAmadeusD

    (NB: feel free to disregard this request for an argument. See below.)

    Okay, but why not? Do you have an argument? What is a morally forceful suggestion and when does some suggestion fail to count as one? Else, see Objection 2.

    If death isn't a possible outcome, then the suggestion is arbitrary in a moral sense (for me, and on
    my understanding of common conceptions)).
    AmadeusD

    Okay, thanks. You've answered my question about an argument, so disregard that. You are saying <If death is not a possible outcome, then the suggestion which bears on the outcome is not moral>. Good. I may come back to this, but it is in line with Objection 2.

    As do I. just don't see them as moral propositions.AmadeusD

    Okay.

    Or, I am considered their values as compared to mine and understanding whether or not, in the exact context, their value might be more practically effective. Is that still moral, to you?AmadeusD

    We may need to circle back to this, because it is an important claim on your part. In the first place I would want to say that it seems like you are considering borrowing from the Egyptian's "more practically effective value." If I am right in this, then it seems that your values or value-hierarchy has been influenced by the Egyptian. But my inquiry at the very beginning of this post now becomes important.

    For me and I think for most people (B) is a moral NH. As you imply, the Egyptian may be offering an NH that will save my life, and we commonly take that sort of NH to be moral.

    (Sorry, I think I missed . That is helpful and provides some clarification for me.)
  • frank
    17.6k
    you can't make the guilt go away by changing your morals, right?
    — frank

    Yes. I was a sociopath for several years, partially to achieve this.
    AmadeusD

    You shouldn't have to do that if morals are a choice. Morals seem to come from outside, that was my point.
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    Tell me if this is this a fair characterization of your view.Leontiskos

    I don't think so, overall, but i'll be specific.

    and the values never changeLeontiskos

    Values constantly change. This is another reason its somewhat arbitrary, even on some shared value basis (on my view, obviously). This says to me the overall thrust of this conception is not what I'm going for.. but...

    So we can mutually influence people who have overlapping values, but we cannot mutually influence people who do not have overlapping values.Leontiskos

    That seems right.

    It sounds like you agree with the conclusion, but you think it does not lead to some other, unmentioned conclusion.Leontiskos

    Yeah. I can't see the point of the argument if its just to assert that we have shared values. Obviously we do, even if we didn't know that empirically. I can assume anyone striving to stay alive shares that avlue with me, whether i know htem personally or not.

    Everyone has them, but nothing guarantees that one person's set of values will overlap with another person'sLeontiskos

    This seems true on any view of anything moral lol. So, yes.

    I guess I would want to know your criteria for determining whether moral influence has occurred.Leontiskos

    This is a tricky one, because it causes me to have considered how other minds can access other minds. I think it would be extremely hard to ever tell but the criteria would be if you've influenced another's values. Then, their values, being the basis for their moral system, subsequently influences their action. Does that make sense? I still have no idea how you'd know, in the event, other than verbal report.

    Or do you want to proffer an entirely different understanding of incoherence than the one I have offered?Leontiskos

    I'm unsure whether or not, on this, but for the sake of ease i'll attempt this, regardless:

    If "right" and "wrong" are to inform moral systems (all common understandings seem to think so - so this isn't a comment on your system, which i take to be non-moral, and instead a better concept that morality for describing behaviour anyway) then that supposed fact is contradicted by the obvious fact that 'right' and 'wrong' give us nothing which could inform the system as they are too ambiguous and essentially self-referential. This is why i say 'brute' in the face of people's use of those words. If someone says "My moral system rests on "right and wrong"" and hten I ask "What do they mean" they will tell me the same thing in a different word order. Recursive, perhaps, and a dead-end rather than incoherent.

    Do you think regrets are hypothetical?Leontiskos

    Yes. You can only regret something on the hypothetical basis something else could have been done. I note that you say all human acts are moral. I can't get on with that. If that's the case, there's no discussion. That's just how it is, and no version would move that needle. They all apply to all acts. Fair, but not what I would assent to, I don't think. Rubbing my nose is not moral.

    You thought it was right (or at least permissible) to drink the water, and he led you to believe that it is not right (i.e. not the right thing to do).Leontiskos

    I don't think those words are usable here. It was either a helpful, or non-helpful action for me to take toward myself. Again, if you take all acts to be moral, fine. I don't take myself acting toward myself to be a moral act. But I also don't quite understand what's being said here - perhaps that[s because (as outlined above) changing someone's action isn't a moral influence, but an empirical one. My values aren't involved in whether or not I act on such and such (that I have incorrectly assessed) and someone's putting my assessment right. My values remain exactly the same, but the data is fixed. In the Egypt example, had I perhaps not even known that drinking water in Egypt could lead to sickness, all he's done is given me information in a really weird form (that socially, I can understand).

    You told me that we need to use words like "right" and "wrong" if we are to talk about morality, and now I am using those words.Leontiskos

    And they make no sense in this context, to me. Yay!!! LOL.

    Okay, but why not? Do you have an argument?Leontiskos

    I take it your answer is, 'yes' then?
    I see nothing moral in it. It's information exchange. No one's values are involved. In fact, I may refuse the umbrella based on my values.

    What is a morally forceful suggestion and when does some suggestion fail to count as one?Leontiskos

    I don't know what this would mean. I don't think the concept obtains, in reality. I think you can make morally forceful arguments about what you think is right and wrong to potentially influence another's values. Suggestions about acts don't do this.

    You are saying <If death is not a possible outcome, then the suggestion which bears on the outcome is not moral>Leontiskos

    Not quite. The point is more to delineate between types of suggestion. If death is a possible outcome, then even the suggestion to avoid a behaviour is moral given the 1 or 0 nature of death. In other contexts, only the suggestion to shift the value underlying an action would be a moral suggestion as there are disparate and potentially infinite possible outcomes/attitudes. But that certainly comes close.

    If I am right in this, then it seems that your values or value-hierarchy has been influenced by the Egyptian.Leontiskos

    You are, and I concede this point. If I have changed my value assessment, then he's influenced me morally. But coming back to the example, he's just given me information by inference. he knows something I don't. My values didn't change.

    You shouldn't have to do that if morals are a choice. Morals seem to come from outside, that was my point.frank

    I understand they seem to, but there's no way to assess this beyond "people influence each other". If that's morality for you, all good. Then we're on the same page. There's no particular reason to be moved by that (or, more properly, those influences). This is just a description of what happens, not a principle for moral thinking). I think....
  • frank
    17.6k
    I understand they seem to, but there's no way to assess this beyond "people influence each other".AmadeusD

    There is though. It could be that aliens are beaming the moral thoughts into your head. "People influence each other" is just a stab at satisfying a particular worldview.

    So leaving behind what we don't know (just read Plato's apology, it's all about acknowledging what I don't know), all we have is that morality seems to have an external ground. It doesn't seem like something I'm making up, it's more something I become aware of through experience.

    We can just leave it at that. No need to make peace with a worldview. Is there?
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    We can just leave it at that. No need to make peace with a worldview. Is there?frank

    No, there isn't, but we're discussing it, so why not take stabs?

    I don't feel morality comes from without, and never have, besides watching religious people go about their business. My experience tells me, more, and more than people are making shit up morally as they go. Only my interactions on TRP, with my wife and one of my brothers seems to indicate any notion of stable, well-developed moral thinking and all three are quite different to one another (I should add, i am ignoring "group" morals here, for which I have different assessments and different experiences).
  • frank
    17.6k

    Do you experience morality that way? Can you change your morality notions on a whim?
  • Bob Ross
    2.3k


    @Banno

    The mark of faith is that when challenged, one's commitment is not to be subject to reevaluation, but to be defended.

    Ok, so, to you, faith is 'trust in an authority to verify the truth or falsity of a claim in a manner where it is dogmatic'. Is that right?

    I've never encountered any serious theist that considers faith to be essentially about never allowing their beliefs (of that type) to be reevaluated.

    Let's amend my example: imagine that this person who believes some fact about black holes based solely on trusting a scientific article is dogmatic about it such that they refuse to reevaluate their belief in the aforesaid fact [about black holes]: are they, then, according to you, acting with faith?
  • Bob Ross
    2.3k


    Thank you for the recommendations! I will check those out.
  • Bob Ross
    2.3k


    Is the word 'assent' in this post mean anything different than 'to agree or affirm'? I get the feeling it is doing more work here in your explanation than I am appreciating.
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    Potentially not 'on a whim' because values tend to be a bit more deep-seated. But I can do it while sitting quietly in my bedroom, unconnected to media or other people. However, I take that to be changing my values. My 'morality' is a system that says those values inform my actions. Not something like "my moral views" which seems unreal to me.
  • frank
    17.6k
    My 'morality' is a system that says those values inform my actions.AmadeusD

    They inform your actions? What does that mean?
  • AmadeusD
    3.3k
    I act from (or maybe, act out?) values. So my values, wherever applicable, are what will 'inform' me as to which action should be undertaken. But 'should' can only be read "Should, if one held these same values with the backing of my same biography' to me.
1303132333455
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.

×
We use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences.