Yes, sometimes it's just seem hard to change direction even in this life. I can agree with that. But sometimes, religious literature itself make some incredible examples of redemption in cases of people that seemed beyond any hope for that (both inside Christian traditions and outside... if you read the case of Angulimala, in the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures, you find an incredible case of 'change of mind' of a criminal that occurred during the encounter with the Buddha). — boundless

Yes, there are definitely those cases, which is part of why we don't give up hope for the living.

In any case, I believe that experience is indecisive here. — boundless

What is decisive, if not experience?

Given these extreme cases, I would say, however, that we have good ground to believe that the 'change' can always happen — boundless

What evidence do we have that change takes place after death?

Well, I don't think that if there is a future life, it will be like this one. — boundless

But don't you think we will be able to repent in the afterlife, as we can in earthly life? Isn't that precisely what you are claiming?

God's salvific will is universal (God loves and wills the best for everyone)
If a sinner sincerely repents, then God will show mercy
Having committed a mortal sin by itself doesn't imply that sincere repentance is not possible

If one accepts these propositions, the simple logical conclusion (whether or not one thinks that God's salvific will will inevitably be realized) is that repentance will always be possible — boundless

No, that's simply not the logical conclusion. Maybe try to write an argument with inference rules if you think that is a valid conclusion.

The additional premise you need is <We can repent in the afterlife just as we can repent in this life>, and I've pointed out how implausible that premise is.

I believe that the second propositions here would contradict the second proposition in the first series. — boundless

But it's a strawman. No one has said that God decreed an arbitrary time limit. What is being said is that every piece of evidence we have shows death to be definitive. The only organic opposition to this conclusion is found in traditions which hold to reincarnation, which nevertheless does not posit progress in a disembodied state.

And there is also Scriptural evidence for such a view. The first example that comes to mind is Luke 16:19-31.

Right, and as I've said, the logical contradiction is more pronounced than that. The universalist can say that Z is inevitable, that Z cannot occur without Y, and that Y cannot occur unless we do X. But this is a contradiction. — Leontiskos

Out of curiosity, do you believe that being evangelized is a necessary requirement for salvation? What about those who never heard the gospel, are they beyond any hope? — boundless

I think you need to face up to this logical contradiction in your view, as I've been pointing to it for quite awhile now. Do you have any answer to this argument about the fact that something cannot be contingent and inevitable at the same time?

I don't think one can logically hold that evangelization is necessary unless they reject universalism. Regarding evangelization and sacramentality, <here> is a conversation about a helpful historical study, hosted by a Balthsarian.

However, God let us the possibility of rejection, because if there were not such a possibility, we would not be able to freely accept God's grace. — boundless

That's right, and I've explained why your view rejects that possibility. To say that one can reject God for a finite amount of time but not forever is to say that one can never ultimately reject God.

However, if one rejects God, such a person would act against one's own nature, after all, and would experience painful consequences (like, say, deciding to do a substance abuse and experiencing the consequences associated with that). The more one rejects God, the more one deprives himself the highest good for him. The experience of painful consequences of these rejections (whether in the form of remorse, the experience of exclusion and so on) could lead to a 'change of mind', precisely because the sinner here finds no ultimate satisfaction elsewhere and might become aware that his or her rejections were, after all, mistakes and then choose the good (also, if we accept that evil is privation, it would seem that it isn't inexhaustible). — boundless

Ergo: coercion, as I've explained. On this view the makeup of creation coerces humans to eventually accept God. They literally have no other option.

If you don't think that this is compatible with free will — boundless

The idea that no one can ultimately reject God contradicts the idea that God can be rejected in a meaningful sense.

I hope that I clarified thay my difficulty is that I can't seem to able to reconcile the traditional doctrine of unending hopeless torment with other various traditional doctrines (all of them, I suppose can find support in Scripture). It's difficult to me that one can sincerely believe in something that finds incoherent or in a group of ideas that seems difficult to reconcile with each other. So, I don't think that I would be persuaded by an 'exegetical debate' if I am not persuaeded that, indeed, the traditional doctrine of hell is indeed compatible with other traditional doctrines. — boundless

That's fair, but it's worth noting that Christianity has found Hell to be more compatible with Christianity than universalism to be compatible with Christianity, for 2,000 years, to such an extent that the universalist position has been extremely historically rare. The literal logical contradiction with the urgency of evangelization is a great example of why universalism is incompatible with Christianity.

Like so many issues, if one approaches this objectively then I think universalism loses by a long shot. Suppose we take an agnostic who has no "horse in the race" and give them the Bible, or Christian tradition, or arguments from experience, or philosophical deductions. Would they come to the conclusion of universalism if they have no predetermined desire for it to be true or false? I don't think so. I don't think they will come to the conclusion that any of these sources support universalism. Another way to see this is to note how much of Christian tradition and Scripture universalists end up shrugging off. For example, Hart is forced to translate Matthew 25:46 as, "And these will go to the chastening of that Age, but the just to the life of that Age." This is completely nuts, as the text is clearly paralleling two eternal destinies: punishment and life. If Hart wants "the chastening" to be temporary, then he has to admit a temporary Heaven. :grin: I am just not capable of that level of mental gymnastics.

Note too that when I wanted to attend to methodology, presenting one verse at a time and seeing whether the set of pro-universalist or anti-universalist verses looks to possess more force, I was prepared to present a large number of verses that are strongly anti-universalist. You ignored my question about Luke 13:23-28, which was the next piece of evidence I had planned to present. The point is that I have been acting merely defensively in this thread. If I were to go on the "offensive" and start providing all of the Christian evidence for Hell then I believe the scales would tip even further.

Sorry - I am getting tired of this conversation. I feel like I've answered the points you've raised and now I'm just repeating myself. For example, I have explained multiple times the contradiction between a contingent means and a necessary end, and you keep offering long considerations that do not actually help you in avoiding that contradiction.

We could have another 30,000 word exchange on the interview with Lusvardi, but I don't want to do that. As I said, I don't want to spend so much of my free time discussing Hell. I think we've had an interesting and fruitful conversation, but I don't want it to go on forever. Maybe this is a good place to stop. Or at the very least, let's draw it to a close in the next few posts.

Here is Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI) speaking to the doctrine more directly than he does in Spe Salvi:

No quibbling helps here: the idea of eternal damnation, which had taken ever clearer shape in the Judaism of the century or two before Christ, has a firm place in the teaching of Jesus, as well as in the apostolic writings. Dogma takes its stand on solid ground when it speaks of the existence of Hell and of the eternity of its punishments. — Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life

True — Bob Ross

I want to say that this is the truer statement:

Faith, unlike ordinary belief or trust, is best can be understood through its persistence under conditions of strain, doubt, or suffering

Faith is always resistant to certain things that direct inference is not resistant to, whether it is religious or not.

I am a theist that does not believe in an eternal immaterial mind/soul but that because God is all just God must resurrect at least those that did not get proper reward or punishment during their lifetimes [to reward or punish them]. — Bob Ross

Okay, fair enough. I would agree that if humans are not eternal by nature then Hell doesn't make sense, similar to the way that it would not make sense to punish someone for 200 years if they only exist for 100 years (or more generally, to act on a substance for x+y duration if the substance only exists for x duration). And I don't think we need to explore too deeply the idea of God artificially prolonging the existence of a substance.

Preachers need a God with charisma, it's in their interest not to make him too "weird". — goremand

Okay, but that seems to fly in the face of the weird caricatures from New Atheist types (or their historical antecedents, such as Carl Sagan and Bertrand Russell).

More directly, the Christian claim is that God descends to man in man's hour of need, so it's not surprising that the "bottom-up" part would also be in place. I guess I don't see why philosophical and religious notions of God must be incompatible.

(Offline until tomorrow - take your time.)

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? — Leontiskos

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

[...]

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...

[...]

That seems right. — AmadeusD

Okay. What I'm trying to do is figure out what your position or argument is so that I can interact with it and critique it. For example, you said:

For Muslims, there's predictive power, for Christians there's predictive power - but overall its extremely hard to predict what people will think is 'good' — AmadeusD

I read this as saying <Muslims have common values and therefore we can predict what a Muslim will deem good; and Christians have common values and therefore we can predict what Christians will deem good; but there are no common values—or very few common values—that Christians and Muslims share. Or that everyone shares. And therefore we cannot predict what everyone will deem good>.

My point is that the interaction with a complete stranger, such as the Egyptian, seems to show that we do have common values, and that there is therefore a morality common to all human beings. Do you agree that if there are some values which we all share, then there is a moral system that is common to all human beings, namely the system based on those shared values?

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. — AmadeusD

Okay, good, and that partially answers the question I just asked.

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. — AmadeusD

Yes, that is a good answer. That's what I had assumed as well. Now, <We morally influence another person when we influence their values; sometimes we do influence another person's values; therefore moral influence does occur>. Do you agree with that?

When I write a syllogism in that way it is almost always <{Premise 1}; {Premise 2}; {Conclusion}>.

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. — AmadeusD

Right, and that makes perfect sense to me if we are conceiving morality and especially right and wrong in terms of categorical/exceptionless moral norms. I've highlighted this a few times, but again:

This is to say that the definition which eludes J and AmadeusD is bound up with categorical/exceptionless moral norms. The idea is that morality is really about rules which admit of no exceptions (and this flows simultaneously from both Kant and divine command theory). The exceptionless character of the rules makes them autonomous, sovereign, untethered to any ulterior considerations, particularly prudential ones. To give a reason for an exceptionless rule is almost inevitably to undermine the exceptionlessness of the rule itself. It's not an unworthy puzzle... — Leontiskos

The idea here is that a notion like that of a categorical/exceptionless wrong is incoherent because by its very nature it cannot be rationally justified, and that which is rationally proposed yet with no hope of rational justification is incoherent (because it cannot be rational and non-rational at the same time).

I think yours is a fair critique of categorical/exceptionless norms, but I don't think morality is reducible to categorical/exceptionless norms.

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

...continuing my last point, the same thing applies to "right." When 'right' is conceived of as categorical/exceptionless, then we get the same problem, but it is equally true that 'right' is not reducible to categorical/exceptionless obligation.

Natural language itself seems to support me. Suppose you bring the water to your lips, the Egyptian says something that seems like a negative NH (for maybe he is speaking a foreign language or trying to bypass a language barrier), and then your friend who is also about to drink water says to you, "I don't know if this is the right thing to do." Now if that word really made no sense to you in that context, your friend's utterance would make no sense to you. But I would expect that such an utterance is meaningful to you, precisely because 'right' is not as nonsensical as you are claiming.

Yes. You can only regret something on the hypothetical basis something else could have been done. — AmadeusD

I would agree that to regret act X requires that X was contingent, but I don't see that this implies that the regret is hypothetical. A hypothetical regret would be something like, "I regret X if..." Similarly, every non-hypothetical ought-judgment is contingent given that something else could be done, and yet this does not make it a hypothetical judgment.

Rubbing my nose is not moral. — AmadeusD

I agree:

Objection 3 to the first article gives the complement of human acts, “But man does many things without deliberation, sometimes not even thinking of what he is doing; for instance when one moves one's foot or hand, or scratches one's beard, while intent on something else.” In his reply to objection 3 Aquinas says, “Such like actions are not properly human actions; since they do not proceed from deliberation of the reason, which is the proper principle of human actions.” — Leontiskos

-

Again, if you take all acts to be moral, fine. — AmadeusD

To be clear, I take all (human) acts to be moral (in the sense specified in my OP). Nevertheless, I am granting for the sake of argument your claim that moral acts tend to be conceived as grave acts, such as acts that pertain to the possibility of death. I address those ideas in Objection 2 and especially Objection 5 of my OP. Objection 5 is basically saying, "You can do that if you want so long as you recognize the Sorites paradox involved." On that conception of morality morality will be "incoherent" in the same way that a Sorites paradox is "incoherent."

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). — AmadeusD

Okay, this is great reasoning.

My idea here is something like this: our acts of "data-gathering" are evaluative and value-driven. That idea goes fairly deep, but we can simplify it. We can say that we usually trust ourselves and our own faculties of knowledge, and that when you formed the judgment to drink the water you were trusting your own faculties of knowledge (and that this involves valuing your own faculties of knowledge). When the Egyptian utters his NH you are required to weigh your own faculties of knowledge against the Egyptian's faculties of knowledge (in the particular circumstance). Whether you choose (C) or (C2) depends on whether you decide to trust your initial judgment (and your own faculties) or his judgment (and his faculties). Of course your own faculties are also involved in judging whether to accept his NH, but the point stands, namely that there is a question of whether to value your initial judgment or the Egyptian's judgment—your unaided faculties of knowledge or the Egyptian's faculties of knowledge. Even after possessing the data a choice must still be made between (C) and (C2), and at least one of those options will involve a shifting of values.

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. — AmadeusD

I agree with the first sentence and I don't quite understand the second sentence. "Suggestion" is a vague word, given that we could either include or exclude suggestions from counting as NHs. Given that suggestions are usually thought of as hypothetical, I would tend to agree with the second sentence.

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. — AmadeusD

Okay, and I am happy with that. It is stronger than the interpretation I ventured.

It looks like you have a kind of (inclusive) dichotomy, <A suggestion is moral if it fulfills at least one of two possibilities: either it bears on a behavior whose possible outcome is death, or if part of the suggestion is to shift a value underlying an action>.

Note that I would prefer 'NH' to 'suggestion' given the ambiguity of 'suggestion.'

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. — AmadeusD

Okay. Again, this is a crucially important claim, and I tried to critique it above.

↪frank 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. — AmadeusD

This relates to regret, too. We can recalibrate our own moral system, and yet we don't seem to do so arbitrarily. Often we seem to be either responding to consequences in real life, or else trying to make our moral system more internally consistent. I think these considerations are also precisely what are operative when we interact with other moral agents and influence one another's values (e.g. real life consequences, logical consistency, etc.).

Thank you for the recommendations! I will check those out. — Bob Ross

:up:

Some of them will involve things that are worth thinking about or arguing about, which is of course what true inquiry should involve.

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. — Bob Ross

No, that's pretty much it. "The same proposition can be held with different modes of assent." A Thomist would say that assent is a more generic act, and that we can assent to a proposition in different ways, such as by faith, or demonstration, or opinion, or probabilistic reasoning, etc. So an act of faith involves assent, but assent does not necessarily involve an act of faith. For example, <2a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, but I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly"> must involve some non-faith basis for assent. Tom Storm was reducing all non-faith-based assents to one category, which is incorrect, but I was just illustrating the different possibilities regarding faith and assent, with the existence of God and airplanes (i.e. his chosen examples).

The seed is already there, so to speak. — goremand

Okay, fair enough.

If you say so. My impression is that a lot of stuff gets lost in this game of telephones. The God of the common believer has always felt very "human" to me, he's our father, he loves us, he'll take care of us in the end, etc. A far cry from the timeless, genderless, emotionless, unfathomable "being" all the serious thinkers seem to end up with. — goremand

I think that's the false inference, though. "The preacher said God loves us therefore he has an undeveloped notion of God." The vocal atheists make that assumption, but the parishioners don't. It is really a kind of circular reasoning for the (vocal) atheist to find that inference plausible.

Christian theism is both philosophically and Scripturally informed, and therefore in that case a "personal" God is not unphilosophical. There are tensions, sure, but that tradition is very old and well-developed. You find the same thing in some other religions too.

I wonder why it is that when I spoke of "atheists generally" your mind went straight to Dawkins and Hitchens and not to these guys. — goremand

I have been talking about vocal atheists (or evangelistic atheists, if you like). That's what I think this thread is centered on, and it's also what seems most pertinent as far as perceptions go. I also think the number of atheists who read Feuerbach & co. is extremely small. Marxism is a larger category, but it isn't as focused on religious debate.

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't — AmadeusD

(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.)

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.

I don't see how this is necessitated from eternal punishment; e.g., God could revive people. — Bob Ross

Okay, but I don't know of any theists who hold that God artificially extends human existence in that manner.

Well, I believe that some universalists would argue that that passage on Judas means that it would be better if was aborted. Not sure I am find it convincing - after all, it is undeniable that it does seem to suggest that he would be better for him to have never coming into existince. — boundless

It seems like the same conclusion would follow even if the text means that it would have been better for Judas to have been aborted.

What you say about that 1 Tim 2:3-4 is also true. Even if we accept that 'everyone' really means 'all human beings without exception', the text merely says that it is God's desire to save everyone. To make another example John 3:17 taken at face value would imply that God's intention is to 'save the world'. This of course doesn't by itself imply that, indeed, everyone will be saved. — boundless

I think that's right. I think we could find lots of examples in Scripture where God desires or wills to do something and yet that thing does not ultimately materialize.

But on the other hand, IMHO the Christian tradition has been insistent to describe God in classical theistic terms. God is omnipotent, omniscent, God's will is changeless and so on. How can God desire the salvation of the 'world' if He already knows that some will not be saved? If God is omnipotent, can God's will be frustrated? — boundless

Classical theism has always distinguished God's antecedent from consequent will (or else has drawn other divisions that amount to the same thing). That said, the body of literature on foreknowledge or predestination and future contingents is very large.

It seems to me then that a 'exegetical debate' doesn't give us compelling arguments. — boundless

All we need to ask is whether it is more plausible to affirm or deny universalism, given some text. Whether the text pushes us in one direction or another. What someone finds "compelling" is fairly subjective.

Probably you are right. — boundless

I'm glad you agree.

Yes, sorry for that. Anyway, I didn't want to 'prove' universalism by questioning their arguments. I just wanted to point out that even in those times there wasn't a consensus on how to interpret some ambigous passages.

Anyway, point taken, I should have at least clarify why I 'invoked' St Chrysostom's thoughts. — boundless

Fair enough.

Yes, that's a tautology, but it is a tautology that follows from what we have been saying and agreeing upon. We agreed that in this life it is said that it is always possible to repent, even if we can fix in sin our own will. — boundless

I think my example of the opium addict contradicted this idea. Empirically speaking, it seems that it is not always possible to reverse direction. Doctrinally speaking, we do not foreclose hope for the living. But here we are talking about the "logical" point, and that is what I was questioning. That is what seems tautological.

Arguably, this is also true in the afterlife — boundless

Based on what argument? It seems like you want to assume that the afterlife is no different than earthly life, and I can't think of any reason to assume that. Almost everything we do in earthly life is changed by death. Why think the ability to repent is different? There is nothing else in earthly life to which we would be tempted to say, "I'll save that for after I die," and yet you seem to think that repentance could be saved for after we die. That cuts across the grain of all our earthly experience, and I think Christianity is being deeply rational when it says that repentance too cannot be postponed until after death. The urgency found in Scripture testifies to just the opposite.

The point is that an universalist might still say that evangelization (in some form) is needed for repentance. Of course the universalist says that salvation can happen after this life, so evangelisation is this life isn't strictly necessary for salvation. — boundless

Right, and as I've said, the logical contradiction is more pronounced than that. The universalist can say that Z is inevitable, that Z cannot occur without Y, and that Y cannot occur unless we do X. But this is a contradiction. They are holding that Z is inevitable and that it depends on a contingent X. Nothing which depends on a contingent event is inevitable. The universalist who thinks the free and contingent act of evangelization is necessary is actually involved in a logical contradiction. This is why universalists who leave religion behind are being eminently rational.

Frankly, I am not sure why you think I am making 'emotional appeals'. I'll just ignore this insinuation. — boundless

Okay, sorry, I must have misread you.

God here begins to look like the guy who tortures you until you finally give in. Or who sets up the universe in such a way that you will suffer until you finally give in. — Leontiskos

You seem to have missed the point here. In the analogy it isn't God who tortures but the illness. If you like, remove the word 'illness' and think about, say, a substance abuse. Arguably, the torment of the patient would be caused by free actions of the patient himself or herself, at least initially. The compassionate doctors will try always to heal the patient. Assuming that the doctors will try forever to heal the patient, will the patient at a certain point be irrecuperable. — boundless

Where does the illness come from? It comes from the universe that God set up. So it still looks like the universalist God "sets up the universe in such a way that you will suffer until you finally give in."

If suffering tends to produce a certain outcome, then infinite suffering will necessarily produce that outcome. On this view there are some people who decide to love God freely, and there are others who are forced to love God after an extended period of suffering pushes them into that outcome. Even on Manichean dualism this looks like a problematic view, namely because it is coercive.

And yet, at a certain point, it seems that God and the Church simply stop to do that. Is it because the sinners at a certain point will be irrecuperable? If so, why? — boundless

Because that's what reason tells us. It's also what Scripture tell us. Death constitutes a finality. That's the reasonable position. It is far less reasonable to hold that things can be postponed until after death than to hold that things must be done before death. The position that repentance can be postponed until after death can be logically possible and highly unreasonable at one and the same time. Perhaps we have been focusing too heavily on logical possibility. On purely philosophical premises, everything apart from a formal contradiction is logically possible, which means that almost everything is logically possible.

But note one thing, however. Let's assume that the illness is caused by the patient's free choices (like in the case of substance abuse). That is, the patient is actually responsible for his or her ill-being.
In both the 'universalist' and 'traditionalist' cases, the doctors want to save the patient. Only in one case, however, the doctors' will is realized. In the other, it won't.
In the form case, the end is the hoped one.
In the latter case, the end is tragic. Of course, it is not a refutation of the latter scenario, but it is interesting to note that. — boundless

Yep.

Then why should we listen to Wayfarers conception of God? How many % does he represent? — goremand

The question is not what percentage Wayfarer represents, but what percentage the object of his critique represents. I actually think Wayfarer's critique is applicable to a large percentage of the vocal atheist population, and more importantly, it is applicable to a large percentage of the TPF atheist population.
Beyond that, various people have noted that the critique will not apply to more precise indictments of Christianity, including myself.

Atheists generally get their idea of God from elementary religious education, from interacting with casual believers and from listening to sermons in church directed mainly at casual believers. You can't really blame them for not appreciating these sophisticated, esoteric alternative accounts of God of interest mainly to a small number of theology-inclined people. — goremand

Along the same lines, I think this is just false. The caricatures that atheists present are not found in elementary religious education, among casual believers, or in church sermons—unless the atheist limits themselves to Westboro Baptist sermons, which they may well do.

There is continuity between the academy and the general population. Parishioners learn from pastors who read theologians. They are all on the same page, it's just that there is a time lapse between the academy and the general population. The same holds for atheists, and the general vocal atheist is learning from anti-theologians like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who are themselves wielding the caricatures. Atheists who draw from more able minds are not as vocal (because they are drawing from thinkers like Nietzsche, Marx, Feuerbach, Comte, etc., and these thinkers are much more careful and nuanced in their representations of theism).

And also how dangerous it is for a trans woman to be in a men's prison. — Michael

We haven't been focusing on that question as much, and I think it has more to do with rights than expedience. This is because the trans woman in the women's prison potentially endangers the 99%, whereas the trans woman in the men's prison potential endangers the 1%. So if we restrict harm to individual harm, then even on a flat harm analysis it would require an enormous harm differential to rationally prefer the safety of the 1% to the safety of the 99%.

Practically speaking, the trans person is going to require special attention no matter where they are placed. If we had infinite money they would have their own prison.

Why should women be put at risk of male violence to protect men? — Malcolm Parry

And yes - if we want to think about the historical situation of females in relation to males, then this is another consideration. @AmadeusD has spelled it out a few times.

- Okay. :up:

Are we agreed that the prison question should be evaluated in terms of expedience and not rights? Or at the very least that criminals have forfeited many of their rights and therefore we are thinking more in terms of expedience than rights? By "expedience" I mean that we are focused on things like harm, cost, manageability, pregnancies, etc.

Your reasoning seems to depend heavily on the empirical question of how dangerous a male or else a trans woman is within a women's prison. I grant that if we knew for certain that no trans woman would ever cause harm within a women's prison, then your position about women's prisons would be golden. Similarly, if we knew that trans women would cause no more harm than the average woman, then your position would be secure.

Questions of perceptions and discrimination are also pertinent, and they could be leveraged to widen the meaning of "cause harm."

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.)

- Okay, interesting. Thanks for the answer. :up:

This is a problem that is very widespread and I think it stems from an inability to ground human dignity and worth in anything in post-modern liberalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ding ding ding. :up:

See also:

My suggestion would be to think about a vegetarian who confronts you, "No species is, tout court, inferior to another." Do you have to stop eating meat? Is their claim falsifiable? Does "tout court" have a discernible meaning in that context? If we cannot enslave those of a certain race, can we enslave those of a certain species?

(Of course it is possible that this suggestion will only confuse you - haha. Still, if natural reason can make these sorts of judgments about species, then at least some "tout court inferior" claims are not nonsensical or unfalsifiable. Note too that racism only came to an end with substantive answers to the falsifiability question. Racism would never have come to an end if we just claimed that the racist had the burden of proof (because the burden of proof is culture- and time-relative).) — Leontiskos

The pertinent question is: should bathrooms, sports teams, prisons, etc. be divided by biological sex, by gender identity, by something else, or by nothing at all? — Michael

What is your answer to the question?

I don't need to read — Janus

Believe me, it is easy to see that you don't read in this area.

From a historically conscious perspective, the whole notion of calling the Christian God evil is unfathomably confused (it's no coincidence that our most cogent illustrations of evil and even of the Problem of Evil come from Christians themselves). Then add the fact that you cannot even produce a substantive reason for why racism is wrong, or should be prohibited. That's pretty standard philosophical-academic problem in the contemporary Anglo-American world: moral truths do not exist and moral claims are not truth apt. Which gives us the average amateur philosopher on TPF saying, "God is evil! Also, evil doesn't exist."

It would be extremely difficult to underestimate the anti-religious thinking sentiment on TPF. What is desperately needed here is reading and information.

I don't know if that is so, just surmising. — Janus

You should find a theological treatment of the problem of evil and actually read it. That way your appraisal will be based on at least one piece of real evidence.

As far as popular writers who come to mind, there's Brian Davies, Eleonore Stump, David Bentley Hart, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright...

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.

Okay, gotcha. :up:
Yeah, I have a feminist friend who has dealt with that sort of thing. She is "old school" in that she gravitates towards Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, but those philosophies are heretical in the more aggressive parts of the trans community.

That's it, in a nutshell. If our human notions of goodness and justice are so far off the mark, from God's point of view, then why call God "really" good or just at all? It's just words, at that point. I think there are ways to "get God off the hook" but this isn't one of them. It's as shameful as a parent whipping a child into the hospital while saying, "But this is just a sign of how much I love you." Yeah, with love like that, who needs hatred? — J

This is a bit like saying, "All teh theists are Westboro Baptists!" It's an irresponsible strawman.

Reformed theology is problematic.* Also, the Reformed constitute a tiny fraction of Christianity. So why take the beliefs of a 2.5% minority and pretend that they represent the whole group? ...Because it's fun to be indignant, and focusing on the crazy minority offers that opportunity.

* Or rather, some. It's not even fair to characterize that whole group this way.

I often see this as well-poisoning by association. I don't paint all TRAs in the light of terfisaslur. But they exist and are worth mentioning. — AmadeusD

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this. I am sure there are bad actors on both sides. I'm just not convinced that "bad acting" is a good basis for a philosophy thread in the Humanities and Social Sciences section. I can understand if @fdrake is frustrated by bad actors, but I don't think that frustration translates into rationale for policy positions. And maybe fdrake recognizes this when he says, "I'm not particularly trying to conclude something reasonable."

The exact same logic applies to sexual assault. — AmadeusD

:up:

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.

1 ) Talking about trans women's rates of sex offence using data.
2 ) Construing trans women as latent rapists on the basis of their {alleged} manhood.

I have the time of day for the former, the latter can suck a bag of dicks, believing something in the manner of ( 2 ) and motte-baileying back to ( 1 ) can suck a larger bag of dicks. It isn't just about being factually correct, people can believe all this stuff in the wrong way. I am not saying you're doing this specifically. I'm bringing the calcified prejudices I usually bring to this discussion's terrain, where knee jerk reactionary crap suffices. — fdrake

You seem emotionally invested in casting your opposition in a bad light, which is why your construal of the lobbyists lacks prima facie credibility. The more charitable and reasonable alternative to (1) is to recognize the strength differential between males and females, and to recognize that this strength differential accounts for the reason society separates incarcerated males and incarcerated females in the first place. That's the elephant in the room for your reasoning: Why are incarcerated males and females separated at all? The fact that this still remains the elephant in the room is a rather significant problem. Presumably to grant the elephant recognition would be to lose a lot of motivation for the negative construals.

At the very least, the idea that men are generally more physically dangerous to women than women are (given the strength differential), is not irrational. If you put two mammals in a room, the potential for significant harm rises as the strength differential increases. Criminality would seem to exacerbate this dynamic.

And maybe an interesting question is this: for the sake of argument, if a group of people come to a true conclusion via invalid reasoning, should we accept or oppose the conclusion? Probably we want to accept the conclusion while opposing the reasoning. But in this case it's not clear why invalid reasoning from the relatively small group of lobbyists should invalidate a true conclusion (about prisons) for the entire population.

- Very clear. :up:

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.

No one does. That's my entire point lol. — AmadeusD

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.

This is a widely accepted conception of morality. — AmadeusD

What "conception"? You yourself claim that your definition of morality is meaningless, and therefore there is no conception. If it is not meaningless, then you should tell me what the conception is.

Given the first reply above this one, it seems pretty clear that either morality doesn't exist or... — AmadeusD

Again, in order to determine whether something exists one must explain what they are talking about. If you say, "Morality is about right and wrong and I have no idea what right and wrong mean," then we have no candidate which could exist or not exist.

Oxford Languages, Cambridge and several AI models. — AmadeusD

So <here> is the Cambridge entry, which is publicly accessible. It says nothing about debates and nothing about "wrong," although the word "right" does occur in a few entries. So it looks like your definition does not come from Cambridge dictionary, unless you are using an older version?

I couldn't possibly hold a view i've noted has a fatal flaw, could I? — AmadeusD

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

I don't generally find it useful to argue other peoples positions for them, but I did that here:

With that said, there are more productive ways to approach such difficulties. First we define morality as that which pertains to rational action, at which point we can try to relate various subdivisions: categorical/exceptionless moral norms, non-hypothetical ought-judgments, weighted moral values or "ceteris paribus rules," and hypothetical imperatives. The tendency among our moral anti-realists is to reduce moral norms to the first subdivision: categorical/exceptionless norms, probably because this is the most potent kind of moral norm. Its potency also makes it the hardest to justify, and therefore it is understandable that someone who reduces all of morality to the most potent variety of morality also comes to the conclusion that morality itself is impossible to justify, and that morality is therefore little more than a pipe dream.

[...]

(This is to say that the definition which eludes J and AmadeusD is bound up with categorical/exceptionless moral norms. The idea is that morality is really about rules which admit of no exceptions (and this flows simultaneously from both Kant and divine command theory). The exceptionless character of the rules makes them autonomous, sovereign, untethered to any ulterior considerations, particularly prudential ones. To give a reason for an exceptionless rule is almost inevitably to undermine the exceptionlessness of the rule itself. It's not an unworthy puzzle, and I think it comes down to the same issue of ratiocination vs intellection. ...And nevermind the fact that J's pluralism will balk at the idea of intellection, even though his mystical "metanoia" is quite similar to it.) — Leontiskos

So presumably you want to say that something is moral if it is obligatory, and that this means that it must be done. On this view a moral norm is therefore a categorical/exceptionless norm.

But the problem here is making that first subdivision the whole of morality. In everyday life it just isn't. For example:

Because this is precisely what people mean when they speak about morality. "That's immoral!" means "that's wrong" or bad. — AmadeusD

First note that the claim, "That's [inadmissible]" is a NH, and every negative NH entails the claim, "You should not do that." Thus, "Note that a non-hypothetical judgment is not the same thing as a categorical imperative. We could say that all categorical imperatives are non-hypothetical judgments, but not all non-hypothetical judgments are categorical imperatives" ().

Now suppose someone becomes a vegetarian because they don't want to cause animal suffering. Nevertheless, one day they are starving and they find a live mouse caught in a live trap. They eat the mouse to stay alive and yet nevertheless continue to consider themselves a vegetarian. Your view is apparently that in order for them to hold the norm, "It is immoral to eat meat," they must wield that norm as a categorical/exceptionless norm. But this is a strawman. It's not how morality is viewed in real life. In real life if a vegetarian allows certain exceptions to their rule this does not disqualify their vegetarianism from being of a moral nature.

You have not been able to say what you mean by morality (or by "right" and "wrong" - the words you use to define morality). So I've offered you a definition, namely one that pertains to categorical/exceptionless norms. You might claim that this is not your definition of morality, but I can hardly be faulted at this point for providing you with a definition, given that you have continually failed to give a clear definition yourself. This definition of morality is incomplete. It is not colloquially adequate. If it were colloquially adequate then the vegetarian in question would not be acting morally in admitting exceptions, but everyone thinks they are acting in a morally-infused manner even if they admit exceptions.

If you want to reduce non-hypothetical ought-judgments (a.k.a. NHs) to categorical/exceptionless norms, you could do it even though it requires a bit of bastardizing. We could construe the vegetarian eating the mouse as saying, "Given the unique circumstances I am in, one should categorically/exceptionlessly eat the mouse, even though one should not eat the mouse in alternative circumstances." Again, this is in fact conflating two different subdivisions of morality, but someone who is intent on categorical/exceptionless norms might want to try to construe it that way.

I'll reverse this section, because it is extremely important to notice that these words are required if you want to talk about morality about actions. That is literally what morality is - the discussion of right and wrong actions. Even your take imports that to ignore a NHO would be 'wrong'. You don't use that word, but without it you have no basis to claim any kind of coherence between the theory and actual actions. We can simply kill ourselves, and there's no valence to it. — AmadeusD

I am not following this, and I am especially curious to know what your third sentence is supposed to mean.

The language problem here is generalizable:

• Amadeus: You are not talking about X.
• Leontiskos: Well, what do you mean by 'X'?
• Amadeus: By 'X' I mean 'Y and Z'.
• Leontiskos: Okay, but what do you mean by 'Y' and 'Z'?
• Amadeus: I don't know what I mean by 'Y' and 'Z'? {NB: 'right' and 'wrong'}
• Leontiskos: If you don't know what you mean by 'Y' and 'Z' then your critique is not meaningful. In that case you are literally saying, "You are not talking about [the I-know-not-what]."

So many of the recent discussions on TPF have hinged on the burden of proof. You are basically saying that you don't know what morality (or else right/wrong) means, and that I have the burden of proof to explain what it means. I then say, "Okay, I will just avoid that word altogether," and you object. That is the especially problematic objection on your part. If someone knows what they mean by a word, then they don't need to use that word. And if someone wants to object, then they must be able to say what they mean by the words contained within their objection.

I agree with the problem in terms - but those terms, being so ambiguous, are a fatal flaw in there being a stable concept of morality beyond this (which anyone with half a brain can understand the intent of, even without decent definitions. We all conceive those words clearly for ourselves). If you are trying to entirely overhaul the concept of morality to fit something people do not usually talk about under that head, so be it. Its just not in any way convincing to me and doesn't seem to pertain to anything one would normally consider moral. — AmadeusD

I don't think you can claim that you "conceive of the words clearly" while simultaneously being unable to say what you mean by them. The whole crux here is that you do not conceive of the words 'right' and 'wrong' clearly.

Not sure why you're trying to avoid that word, though. It is hte basis of what we're discussing after all.. — AmadeusD

No real discussion is merely about words. The token m-o-r-a-l-i-t-y is not the basis of our discussion. Discussions are about concepts, and a token with no attached concept is not a word at all. The I-know-not-what is not a basis for anything, for it has no content.

It requires a concept of right and wrong. — AmadeusD

Wrong: "Not correct" (Cambridge)

On that definition the non-hypothetical ought-judgment, "Do not drink the water!" is a claim about what is wrong/incorrect. ...But now you will want to say that it is about wrong but not about "moral wrong," and the whole circle will repeat itself...

Not so, and there's no good evidence for it. — AmadeusD

That's a good example of a complete non-argument.

- True, but there is a particular culture that accounts for why one is made to focus on the Westboro's and then seek validation for their focus, and it can be traced back even as far as Enlightenment Rationalism.

You think that to be a human generates an automatic interest in a single best way to live -- or, perhaps, that it's impossible for a human not to want the best way to live, however misguided they may be. Would that it were so! — J

This is a misreading. @Count Timothy von Icarus is saying that humans will choose what they deem best, not that humans will choose what Count deems best. You are the one who is apparently committed to the (contradictory) idea that humans will not choose what they deem best.

Words like "good," "bad," "best," "worst," "desirable," "undesirable," etc., do not function ad unum (towards one thing). That's why we argue about what is best even without disagreeing on whether we ought to choose the best. If we did not agree that we ought to choose the best then there would be no point in arguing about what is best. This goes hand in hand with your misunderstanding of the choice-worthy.

Your claim is that "x is best" never implies "do x," — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the only recourse for @J is to say that the decision to do nothing at all does not count as a decision, or equivalently, that the claim, "x is best (among all options)" is not taking into consideration the option where one does nothing.

J would then be saying something like <"x is best" never implies "do x" because I might choose to do nothing at all>.

The response to this objection is to simply note that the decision to do nothing is itself a decision. The error here is very closely related to the conflation between a non-hypothetical ought-judgment and a hypothetical ought-judgment where, despite the evidence, the moral non-realist will claim that every piece of advice is merely hypothetical. For example, the moral non-realist wants to say, "Sometimes people will say that the Toyota is the best car to buy if I want to buy a car, but they will never simply tell me that I should buy a Toyota. They will never tell me, 'This is what you should do, all things considered.'" (They will never speak the following words non-hypothetically: "Don't drink the water!")

What's really interesting about this is that the moral non-realist claims that morality is not real, and yet he must ultimately change reality itself in order to hold this position, namely by changing all the patent instances of non-hypothetical ought-judgments into hypothetical ought-judgments. He must pretend that all advice is only intended hypothetically, even his own advice, and even his own advice to himself.

Relatedly:

Acts and regrets are non-hypothetical

Following in the footsteps of Philippa Foot, many are accustomed to claim that morality is merely a matter of hypothetical judgments, or that non-hypothetical judgments are rare.⁵ To give an indication of how gravely mistaken this opinion is, consider the fact that acts and regrets are all non-hypothetical... — Leontiskos

Atheists generally get their idea of God from elementary religious education, from interacting with casual believers and from listening to sermons in church directed mainly at casual believers. — goremand

I think the kind of atheists who the OP is referring to get their idea of God from New Atheist sermons. That group is disproportionately represented online.

Yeah, definitely. I think we have been to some degree. Initially it was grating, but now I see it clearly, it's interesting and revealing :) — AmadeusD

Yes, but I would say the impasse is alive and well. :razz:

Two forms are given. We may be speaking about two distinct uses of the same word. Mine is definitely descriptive. — AmadeusD

Okay, but you've defined morality as, "The debate between right and wrong," and I'm not sure how a debate could be descriptive. In fact I don't really understand how the word morality is supposed to refer to a debate at all. But these are your definitions, so I leave them to you. I've dropped the word 'morality' entirely from my argument.

it is hte first dictionary definition — AmadeusD

According to what dictionary?

whereas I think you may be using a proscriptive/normative form — AmadeusD

Yes, my definition of an NH is certainly normative. That's true.

I think either could be true, but I see a much bigger problem. On what basis are you justifying that conclusion as a moral one? How can it be "right" or "wrong" particularly when you cannot(or don't, i'm unsure) sufficiently define those terms? I fully agree that ambiguity of those terms is a problem - in fact, I think it's fatal. — AmadeusD

That's your definition, not mine. As I said, I don't know what you mean by 'right' and 'wrong', so if your definition is to be meaningful you would need to spell that out. Here is what I said:

Supposing you want to disagree, you have a few options here:

1. Decide that the conclusions pertain to 'morality' and then dispute the argument
2. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' and then agree with the argument
3. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' but then dispute the argument anyway — Leontiskos

Now apparently you want me to decide whether my conclusions pertain to your definition of "morality." I can't really do that, given that I don't know what you mean by 'right' and 'wrong'. I would suggest that you read the OP where I explain what a non-hypothetical ought-judgment is, and then try to figure out if it relates to your own concept of morality (whatever that concept is). I stopped using the word 'moral' in my argument in this thread (if we can't agree on what a word means then why would we use it at all?), but in my OP I do use that word and explain what I mean by it. If you have a special desire to use the word m-o-r-a-l in our conversation, you could look there for an alternative definition. Nevertheless, I make no use at all of the words "right" and "wrong" in that OP. I myself don't see why any of the three words are necessary at all, especially if we are using them equivocally between us.

If you do decide on option #2 or #3 and say that my argument does not pertain to 'morality', then I would expect at least a syllogism with a middle term that looks something like: <Morality requires X; Your argument omits X; Therefore your argument does not pertain to morality>. Note that you might be tempted to say, <Morality requires the words "right" and "wrong"; Your argument omits the words "right" and "wrong"; Therefore your argument does not pertain to morality>. The problem with this would be that I still don't know what you mean by "right" and "wrong", and I can't imagine why an argument would be required to include the five-letter tokens r-i-g-h-t and w-r-o-n-g.

A healthy body of law and regulation depends on moral realism, and in a culture where moral realism is waning the body of law becomes unhealthy. Like all natural rights, the right to speech requires moral realism. Nevertheless, because the value of speech is more perspicacious than most values, it is easier for the moral non-realist or the morally non-realistic culture to support the right to speech. In the case of speech it is easier for the moral non-realist to have his cake and eat it too.

When you have a culture that tends towards moral non-realism, free speech absolutism becomes more intuitive (i.e. the idea that there are no values which compete with speech becomes more intuitive). Even so, this merely a stage in a destabilizing process, for the moral non-realist can’t actually justify the value of speech in any significant way, and those who wish to oppose speech absolutism also have no sound arguments to hand, deprived as they are of moral realism. So it becomes the culture of Thrasymachus or Nietzsche, where the power of might makes right. You can actually see this same thing in my thread, “Beyond the Pale,” where the majority of participants said that there simply is no rational justification for prohibiting things like racism (or in this case, racist speech).

is not clearly imbedded in the example. I understand your following (in this post) justification for why I should have assumed this - my point is that your example doesn't rise to that level. I'm unsure that's a tractable issue. — AmadeusD

Okay, but it's an important issue. If we don't mean the same thing by 'morality' then we will be talking past each other.

Ok, so in this case we agree. — AmadeusD

Sure.

What the fuck dude????: — AmadeusD

Sorry, my bad.

Morality: The debate between right and wrong. — AmadeusD

"right" and "wrong" are definitely arbitrary in the sense you want to use them to support a moral system... — AmadeusD

I don't find this a helpful definition. This is because instead of one ambiguous term ('morality'), we now have two ('right' and 'wrong'). You yourself immediately put the two key terms of your definition into scare quotes, which is bad news for us if we want a precise definition.

Again, I have been talking about non-hypothetical ought-judgments. An example of this is, "Do not drink that water!"

I think we need a clearly defined subject if we are to discuss it. I think "non-hypothetical ought-judgments" are very clearly defined. I wrote an entire OP on the subject. I don't think, "The debate between right and wrong," is clearly defined, and therefore I don't think we can have a discussion about it until it is further clarified.

Let me give the argument again:

1. We all make moral judgments (in the sense of non-hypothetical ought-judgments)
2. Our moral judgments are able to be evaluated, both by ourselves in retrospect, and by others
3. We respect these evaluations, or at least some of them
4. Therefore, ought-claims have force
5. Therefore, the "rhymes and reasons" are not arbitrary — Leontiskos

Let me clarify the argument a bit and also dispense entirely with the word 'morality':

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

5c is really my primary conclusion. I realize that this argument will be difficult to follow if one does not understand what an NH is, and that understanding will require looking at the thread where I lay it out.

Supposing you want to disagree, you have a few options here:

1. Decide that the conclusions pertain to 'morality' and then dispute the argument
2. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' and then agree with the argument
3. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' but then dispute the argument anyway

Let me give an example using the water case:

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)

Note that by giving the stranger's utterance due consideration you "respect it." One need not agree with an evaluative NH in order to respect it. Hopefully that example helps illustrate the argument, even if you want to say that you would not give the stranger's utterance due consideration.

The validity of 5c is really the crux, and I don't claim that I have given sufficient argumentation for it, but I also don't want to do too much work in a single post. The sense of 5c crucially requires that we understand what an NH is, and that we do not conflate a non-hypothetical ought-judgment with a hypothetical ought-judgment. Again, this terminology is explained in my thread.

Roughly, yes — AmadeusD

Okay, good. Your thesis is very close to 5c, so that's good. Perhaps I need more reasoning to justify 5c; perhaps I need more reasoning beyond 5c to reach a substantial conclusion; and perhaps the argument is sufficient as it stands.

I am now back to supremely enjoying this exchange, fwiw. — AmadeusD

Glad to hear it.

That is not at all clear, and if that's baked into your examples you're hiding the ball the whole way through. — AmadeusD

How was I hiding the ball? I said it at the very outset:

1. We all make moral judgments (in the sense of non-hypothetical ought-judgments) — Leontiskos

You've misrepresented the argument by interpreting a moral judgment as a hypothetical ought-judgment. I agree: if the argument is misrepresented in that way then it is invalid. But the argument was never about hypothetical imperatives.

I literally did do this when I was in Egypt, so I don't quite know why you would make such a blatantly unsupportable claim? — AmadeusD

So you are telling me that when you were in Egypt someone told you not to drink the water, and you did not give their utterance any (due) consideration? Their utterance had no force on your decision process?

Nope. That's what you think, and are not convincing me of. That's fine. — AmadeusD

I'm not sure what you are supposed to be arguing here. Are you claiming that it is impossible for a complete stranger to tell you not to drink water?

That's fine. I've already told you that "ought" need be unpacked there, and you've not done it... — AmadeusD

But I have done it, namely in the thread that I have referenced multiple times.

I think you are incorrectly describing morality. — AmadeusD

As I've said, I have no use for the word "morality." You can't even say what you mean by it, so I see no point in using it.

can. Again, totally unsupportable by anything but your intuition to this effect. Fine. i don't share it, nor does my experience support my assent. — AmadeusD

The thesis you seem to be proposing is this: <Sometimes the non-hypothetical ought-judgment of a complete stranger has force for me, and sometimes it doesn't>.

Is that accurate or not? If not, please tell me what you are saying when you say, "Can."

Fixed (im jesting that it's 'fixed' - that's just my view and experience). But then, generally only happens to trans women. Because they are male. It is the male doing all the lifting - not the trans. That part is almost irrelevant until you look at the stats and realise that trans women are vastly more likely to commit a sex crime than even non-trans males. I do not think it is "you're in camouflage" and rather "It doesn't matter what you're wearing. You are male. Stay out". I think that's entirely fair and I think point-blank period MALES trying to tell females what they can and cannot allow in their spaces is utterly reprehensible and just another form of misogynistic horseshit we've been battling for millennia. — AmadeusD

Great points. :up:

We have fundamental societal reasons for separating males from females. The reasons hold whether those males have long hair, or have an earring, or identify as a woman. The reasons are based on biology, not mental beliefs.

@fdrake's concern is generalizable: "What if there is something about someone that makes them unpopular in prison?" The answer is that something should be done to protect them, within reasonable limits. It doesn't matter whether it is their long hair, their earring, or their mental identification that makes them unpopular.

(Note that a woman who is an elite powerlifter will receive special attention from a prison, for the exact same reason that men and women are separate.) — Leontiskos

They won't be excluded on the basis of their strength alone. — fdrake

They will receive special attention on the basis of their strength alone, actually.

If you think that placing biological men who are criminals into an all-woman environment will not endanger the women, then you are the one who has to demonstrate that the men pose no special risk. — Leontiskos

Wrong demographic innit.

The relevant comparison is trans women in women's prisons, not men generically in women's prisons. — fdrake

You've simply misrepresented what I've said. I spoke specifically about biological men.

Women who sexually assault women still go to women's prisons for god's sake. — fdrake

Now try to form a valid argument out of that claim.

Legislation that wants to send people to prisons based entirely on their natal sex for the protection of women then sends women {trans men} to serve sentences in buildings full of rapists. It's utter hypocrisy. You send a woman who passes as a man {how you see it} to a building with loads of women with dubious understandings of consent who might be attracted to her, who's way more likely to be the victim of sexual assault because she's a trans man. And she's a woman {according to how you see it}. — fdrake

Again, you don't seem to have any real proposals. I mean, are you proposing that trans men should be sent to men's prisons? As I said:

Logically, the abuse matter is tricky because a trans man or trans woman who has received hormone treatment will possess a strength somewhere between that of the average man and woman, and therefore they introduce a new (and varied) strength differential. For example, the trans man will be stronger than women but weaker than men, and therefore there is a potential for abuse in both women's and men's prisons. — Leontiskos

The rational position is that biological men should not be incarcerated with women (and biological men should not compete in women's sports). That leaves the question about trans men open. You can make an argument that they should be sent to men's prisons if you like. I don't think we need to physically protect men from biological women at the societal level of incarceration. The main problem I see with that is in prison, which seems a bad option no matter where we stand.