David Foster Wallace gives a very original analysis of the sea-battle problem in his "Richard Taylor's 'Fatalism' and the semantics of physical modality." (Before he turned to fiction, Wallace was on track to be a professional philosopher.) Wallace uses Taylor's canonical essay “Fatalism” as his target to contest the apparent contradiction in the sea-battle problem. Taylor believes that the logical and semantical premises of the problem do indeed force an acceptance of determinism. But Wallace makes this distinction:

The legitimate conclusion of Taylor’s argument can only be that, given the absence of a battle today, it is not today possible that I did give order O at P1, not that at P1 it was not possible for me to give order O if I chose to do so. — Wallace, in Fate, Time, and Language, 170-71

Wallace constructs an entire toy modality system, based on Kripke and Montague’s work, to demonstrate how this works. He also offers an ordinary-language way of capturing a critical modal difference in how we think about tensed operations:

[If there is no sea-battle, then it] can’t have occurred yesterday, not that it couldn’t occur yesterday. This is an absolutely vital sort of distinction. Compare the following sentences, and think of the kinds of “impossibilities” they really express: “It can’t have rained last night; there are no puddles on the sidewalk this morning” vs. “It couldn’t rain last night; last night a high-pressure ridge was keeping all precipitation-causing clouds out of the area.”

. . . The thing to see is that every properly used physical-modal operator appears, and is to be evaluated as appearing, within the scope of an index-specifying tense operator (or tense-marker); when no tense-/time-operator is explicitly designated, it takes as a default assignment the index “here and now.” [This] actually reflects the way considerations of tense, time and modality are used in our everyday thinking and speech. — Wallace, 171

In the “rain” example, the tense-markers (and concomitant physical conditions) of “last night” vs. “right here now” determine how we evaluate the modal possibilities. And the sea-battle's possibility will change, depending on whether we're looking forward or looking back. Strictly logical modalities don't work this way; logical form doesn't occur in physical space/time at all.

Einstein said once, in dialogue with Tagore, 'I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man.' But this overlooks the point that it is something only man can know. It's not a sense object, but an intelligible relationship that can only be discerned by a rational intellect. Like all of physics. The problem with today's understanding is, that it generally forgets to take into account the mind that knows it. — Wayfarer

I agree that taking into account the knowing mind is essential, and that too much physicalist or scientistic thinking refuses to see this.

But actually, it makes a difference whether "the knowing mind" is limited to a human mind. Let's go with your other term, "a rational intellect," instead. What might this include? Other intelligent ET species, certainly. But also the sort of cosmic mind that is often posited in religion. Is there an argument you'd want to make that such a mind is impossible, or hopelessly unlikely? If not, and positing such a mind, then the existence of all intellectual objects of knowledge doesn't require human minds at all. Isn't that exactly the sort of independence we're looking for?

And if you want to get really Western-theistic, not only does this cosmic mind know intellectual objects, but they created them in the first place, arguing for even more independence from human thought.

But . . . even if all this were true, we're still left with the gap between how we represent this relationship of intellectual objects to ourselves, and how the cosmic mind did or does. Any sort of mind-independence calls into question the accuracy of what we can know. It requires further premises and arguments to conclude that the Pythagorean theorem looks the same to you, me, ET, and God.

I do think there are objective/intersubjective values, quite apart from my personal opinions about them.
— J

Could you elucidate? I've been looking for something of that order for two decades. — AmadeusD

That would be a good challenge for me. I'll try. Give me a few days.

:cool:

I whine, I rot. What a relief, I was afraid I'd be diagnosed as a liberal! :smile: We progressives hate that.

Ah well, we'll muddle on then. Your reply isn't quite what I had in mind by "achieving a critical center."

I am referring to AmadeusD's contention that the "good" and "ought" of most ethics is not a true "moral good" or "moral ought" (which you seemed to be agreeing with?), while nonetheless being unable to describe or give examples of what such a "moral good" or "moral ought" would even entail. — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK, this helps. I don't know if I've got @AmadeusD right, but I think the position you're describing would be something like: When we say "ought" in an ethical context, we mean "I ought to do this if I hold certain values and wish to achieve them." I took him to mean that asking for a further, special "moral ought" -- which would be categorical, and which would also specify the values -- is a mistake. If that's what he meant, then clearly he can't give any examples because he thinks there aren't any. Is that absurd? Or am I still not getting it?

Turning to my own thoughts: I don't think you can generate a moral ought from an "is" -- or a definition, or a first premise. I'm not sure how that fits into the situation you describe. Perhaps you think it must be absurd to claim to be a moral realist and yet not base values on rational premises? I don't see that, but please say more about it, if that's what you mean.

It's strange to me that someone would accept facts about values, and facts about human flourishing, but not ethics on the grounds that the aforementioned are not properly "moral." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure they're properly moral. But they don't generate an ought. Being moral is not rationally obligatory.

What's the idea: "There are facts about what is good and evil, but this tells us nothing about what one ought to do?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ought to do if what?

this seems bizarre to me. "This car is better in every way, and cheaper," doesn't provoke the response "ok, so this one is clearly better, but I don't know which I ought to pick, the better or the worse?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm afraid it's still not categorical, because you're assuming a desire for a car. What would be bizarre would be this: "I want a good car, and this car is better in every way, but I don't know which to pick." Again, the difference between a value and an "ought."

Obligation and duty are one reason why it might be good to do something. That you can find no connection between "x is best" and "you should choose x," would seem to lie in this idea you have that any "ought" must be in the context of some sort of command, a "thou shalt." — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is good. It's true that a deontological approach will tend to emphasize the obligatory concepts involved in ethics. But I don't think knowing "what is best" in ethics (which, from the standpoint of a non-Aristotelian, doesn't at all resemble knowing what a good car is) can result in the statement, "Therefore, you should do what is best."

Let's stay with your car example. You agree, I'm sure, that it's reasonable for a person to say, "Yes, I quite see that this is the best car, but as I don't want a car, I won't buy it." However, you don't think it's reasonable for a person to say, "Yes, I quite see that this action X is the best thing to do, ethically, but as I'm not interested in the ethical good, I won't do it." That's probably where our conceptions differ. 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!

One of us has a definition. The Good is "that at at which all things aim." I am not dogmatically rejecting any other definitions (indeed, I asked for them), I am pointing out that the objections in this thread are based on no definitions at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the dogmatism -- though that may be too strong -- lies in your insistence that only "providing a definition" will further the discussion, which in turn implies that the entire subject is capable of such definitions. Some of your interlocutors don't believe it is. I'm not that skeptical, but I do think the "dueling definitions" method is not the only way to approach a deep philosophical subject. For instance, my reply to your request for a definition of capital-G Good would be, "There is no single definition. The term is used in a variety of contexts and intentions, especially within ethics. Let's look at some of them and see what we can learn." Is that really such an illegitimate starting point?

The other issue of dogmatism here -- and forgive me if this is too harsh -- is that I often get the sense that you think any position that contradicts Aristotle or the Scholastics must be wrong -- that this is your starting point. I'm sure you try to be fair, but the (strong) preference is apparent. You believe Aristotle & Co. discovered all the important philosophical truths long ago. But please correct me if this is ungenerous.

Tigers being "aquatic reptiles" might be "absurd," but there is certainly a dialogue to be had about why it is wrong, and why "tigers are large stripped cats" is better. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course, as I said. Reasons can always be compared and judged.

This conversation seems more to me like "tigers aren't large striped cats because real tigers are x." And then to the question: "what is this x that real tiger possess?" the answer is: "I don't know, it probably doesn't exist" or "x exists but it is inaccessible to reason." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, the quest for definitions. I really wouldn't approach such a conversation by trying to find some essence that a real tiger possesses. I might say, "Here are the problems I see with your concept of a tiger [if I saw any]. Let's see if we can work our way toward a better understanding."

OK, thanks.

I'll ponder that Mill quote. Thinking about Germany's current policies on Nazi speech . . . perhaps there's such a thing as an entire nation suffering trauma, and being determined not to let it happen again. Anyway, we in the US try to live up to Mill's ideal, in theory. We're allowed to be stupid and wrong in public. Our free-speech problems lie elsewhere, I think: For whom is free speech free, once the legal protection is put in place?

I’m not even sure “cancel culture” is an actual phenomenon, to be honest. — NOS4A2

Thank you! It may be a shadow on the cave wall . . . one of those pictures our media friends like to show us.

Yes. I was appreciating your OP all the way until you got to the part about not tolerating cancel culture etc. What, exactly, would we want to make illegal here? Saying that someone ought not to be given a platform? Trying to deny them one? Succeeding? Not only does this send the speaker into hiding, as @Richard B, says, but it really lowers the bar on what it means to be intolerant. Popper seems to have violent, anti-tolerant (not merely intolerant) rhetoric and behavior in mind, not refusing to screen Woody Allen movies.

We should also remember the distinction between a person and a government. I may want my government to tolerate all manner of crap that I personally wouldn't.

.

Is a definition of "ethics" and "good" that makes it impossible to demonstrate a single example of such an "ethical good" or to even explain under what conditions something could be said to be "ethically good" or a "moral ought" not absurd? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You've alluded to something like this before, but I really don't follow. I believe I've said quite a bit about the ethical good and the moral ought, focusing on the important (to me) epistemological distinction between value and obligation. But I may well be missing what you mean. If you have the patience, could you say more about the absurdity?

you seem to think that in ethical matters "any definition is as good as any other." — Count Timothy von Icarus

But I said just the opposite! "This is not a brief for ethical relativism."

If someone wants to define a tiger as "an aquatic reptile," there would be an impasse so long as the person can defend "tigers are an aquatic reptile" with a straight face and some standard of "rationality." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think I was careful to rule out absurd definitions. There is no standard of rationality that either one of us would acknowledge which could make this straw definition non-absurd.

Realism implies that not all definitions are equal. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course they aren't. That's why I said, "There could then be a discussion about each person's reasons for selecting their preferred definition." It might well turn out that one set of reasons is the more convincing.

This last comment suggests some possibly useful paths to explore. I've often had the sense that your (and other neo-Aristotelians') conception of how to arrive at truth is what we might call "armchair" -- an apodictic, or at least deductive, process that one person, using premises believed to be reliable, could carry out completely on their own. There isn't a lively sense that other thinkers and traditions could be useful, could offer reasons and perspectives that would perhaps alter even those bedrock premises fruitfully. The truth is seen as already out there, waiting to be deduced. So perhaps the better phrase is "philosophy as a mathematical process."

Let me try to put this in terms that may be congenial to you. You may be familiar with the Lonergan scholar Michael H. McCarthy. And I'm guessing you admire Lonergan himself very much -- he and MacIntyre are often mentioned in the same contexts. This solo approach to dialectic, according to McCarthy, is what Lonergan called "dogmatic." He deplored "the search for an algorithmic method to eliminate philosophical disagreement." As McCarthy writes (and I'm not sure how much of this paraphrases Lonergan):

Only after a reflective appropriation of the subject is it possible to evaluate philosophical differences in a manner that is neither dogmatic nor skeptical. The goal of dialectical criticism is not the elimination of philosophical conflict, but the achievement of a critical center from which to judge the merits and limitations of the opposing philosophical traditions. — McCarthy, The Crisis of Philosophy, 294

This seems beautifully put, to me. It's essentially the same process I find Peirce and Habermas recommending. We simply cannot arrive at truth without taking the other's views into consideration. And "to take into consideration" does not mean to argue against them, on the assumption they are probably wrong. That is the dogmatism Lonergan rejected. That does not create "a critical center." As for Habermas, he would probably say something like, "Yes, let's sit down and see if we can understand each other before trying to form a judgment on the issue." With all respect, Timothy, that doesn't involve thinking your interlocutors are on the level of The Big Lebowski. I certainly hope you don't feel that I see you that way.

But, sigh, this is a Philosophy Forum, so I guess that proposing less argument will never be popular.
:smile:

I guess what I don't understand about all this is: What would then allow you to interpret the "Southern preacher" as speaking in simple literalisms? Aren't you supplying a context for them, then saying you can't supply one for yourself?

Just from what you've provided, you're assuming a particular context, specifically a New Testament version of "God" which arguably differs substantially from the OT (as you refernced "Gospel). That places you into a Christian context. — Hanover

Yes. Sorry, I thought that was the context from which you spoke as well. Perhaps I got that wrong.

To give a secular example, if I were to ask what a particular provision of the US Constitution means . . . — Hanover

But a little perspective, please? :wink: This isn't a judicially ambiguous, much-contested provision of a legal document. It's a simple phrase: "God loves you." Definitely some possible divergent ways of understanding this, but is it really capable of the same kind of multiplicity of interpretations, arguing the same case-specific technicalities? Is that what you think Christians would say about it? (I'm trying to picture the disciples scratching their heads and saying, "Now when he said 'love,' do you think he really meant 'love' like my Daddy loves me? Maybe he meant the way I 'love' catching a fish? That could have been it!"). And of particular significance for this thread about theodicy, is it capable of an interpretation that is consistent with our brutal circumstances here on Earth? As I've said earlier in the thread, I think we require the possibility of an afterlife to make sense of that.

And this was my point to Wayfarer (and his point as well), which is that the attack on biblical meaning by using the most unsophisticated exegesis method available is a strawman. — Hanover

I quite agree. I don't agree that asking what "God is love" might mean, in a Christian context, is asking for an unsophisticated exegesis. And you've misunderstood me if you think I'm trying to cast doubt on this picture of God. Just the opposite.

So we have to juggle both the subjective ontology of idea formation, and the objective metaphysics of what is thereby formed. — Fire Ologist

Yes, that was the distinction Frege drew between psychologism and logic.

as they both agree the idea of addition also must exist in each other's minds; it's the same addition each sees separately, in each other's minds, in 2+2 and in 3+17. This is both mind-independent (shared between two different subjects), and only there because of the minds that know addition. — Fire Ologist

OK, but mind-independent only in the sense of "not confined to my mind." It doesn't tell us whether these intersubjective sharings are mind-independent in the sense of "about something that exists regardless of whether either of us has the idea of it."

If you asked for a specific interpretation of those sentences within the context of a particular denomination, you'd get varying answers. — Hanover

Certainly. But I'm asking for your answer, in the context of saying that "simple literalisms" should be avoided when trying to understand religious doctrine. Is this an example of such a literalism? If further context is needed, I can find some Gospel passages, I suppose, but I doubt whether you really need them.

Now that I've seen @Count Timothy von Icarus's reply, I can say a little more. (I hope to hear more from him as well, though he hasn't yet replied to my latest.) What he writes suggests to me that the equation of "valued as an end in itself" with "ought to be done" has two characteristics: It is definitional, and it is universalizable.

To the first, every philosopher is entitled to their own bedrock definitions, if they're not absurd, and this is not. All we can say in response is, That is not how I define the term. There could then be a discussion about each person's reasons for selecting their preferred definition.

To the second, I'm not sure what Count T thinks about this. You think what is of personal value cannot be universalized or objectified further. I'm more of the opinion that values can only be known subjectively, but that reasons for action may be presented rationally. And to say that "values can only be known subjectively" is not the same thing as saying "they cannot be misperceived or misunderstood, because they are strictly personal."

the caricature religion one imagines of simple literalism screamed from the pulpits throughout the South. — Hanover

Is "God is love" or "God loves you" simple literalism?

And it also depends on what we take “Father” to mean. Interpreted archetypally, Father is a symbol of creative origination — the generative, principle. — Wayfarer

But read the Gospels. Do you really imagine this is what Jesus meant? He called God Daddy, and begged him not to make him suffer! And when Christians gather every Sunday to proclaim that God is love, do you think they mean this analogically? Or only that they ought to?

But it’s meant analogically, not literally. — Wayfarer

Do you say this because a literal meaning doesn't seem sensible to you? You may be right. But I truly believe that Christian doctrine (and, in large part, Jewish and Islamic doctrine as well) finds it not only sensible but essential. Unless you want to picture a huge divide between "theological Christianity" or "Christology" or whatever, and the plain tradition of Christian teaching, for "unsophisticated" people.

Jesus, after all, was a pretty demanding teacher. 'He who saves his life will lose it, while he who loses his life for my sake will be saved.' There's a moral demand in that, isn't there? It isn't 'do what you like, it will turn OK' — Wayfarer

Oh, definitely. There's nothing there that contradicts my idea of a loving parent. It's the dying-of-loathsome-diseases part that bothers me -- if God loves us.

The argument is, if the existence of suffering is supposed to be an indictment against God, then where do you draw the line between what you would deem a reasonable and an unnacceptabe degree of suffering? — Wayfarer

Sorry for the second post, but I just saw this.

I can reinforce the point I was making above by changing this to:

"If the existence of suffering is supposed to be an indictment against a loving God who is like a parent to us, then where do you draw the line between what you would deem a reasonable and an unnacceptable degree of suffering?"

So this gives us some choices. We can say that God is like a loving parent, but our human idea of a "loving parent" is hopelessly wrong, that true parental love is much more like super-super-super-tough love, necessitating every bit of the (natural) suffering that occurs in the world.

Or we can say that God is not like a loving parent -- their "ontological causality" rains equally on the just and the unjust -- in which case the question of suffering is moot.

Or we can agree that to imagine God as a loving parent is to imagine them more or less like our human idea of such a love, in which case the question of "where to draw the line" is, to me, obvious. We could debate the specifics, I suppose, but if any human parent created an environment for their child that even approached the horrors of what humans experience from nature, that parent would be monstrous. So rather than draw a line and say "right here is where God should have stopped," let's just say, "take your pick, but it should have been drawn WAY closer to compassion and mercy."

Not to be repetitive, but this doesn't represent me trying to tell God how to run the hotel. It's me trying to find some consistency in the way Abrahamic faiths claim God does run the hotel, versus what we actually see. The "should" translates to "should, if these other claims about God's love are true." The problem is not with God, but with the consistency of human descriptions of God.

But this picture, intuitive though it may be to us, is metaphysically confused. It domesticates divinity into a kind of super-personality — and then is shocked when the universe doesn’t live up to the standards we come to expect. — Wayfarer

I don't know if it's metaphysically confused or not, but it is the picture given us by the Abrahamic tradition. "God is love" - "God loves us like a parent loves their children" -- aren't these statements meant to be true? Perhaps they do represent a domestication of divinity. The question is, is such a picture consistent with the state of this world? Most other spiritual traditions don't see it that way, as you point out -- not the Greeks, not the Buddhists, not the Taoists. Nor do many Christian theologians like Tillich, from what I can gather (I haven't read him firsthand). Standard Christian theology, to its credit, recognized that an afterlife is essential in order to make sense of this picture. If you want philosophical reasons for that, Kant offers some excellent ones in CPR.

But this view mistakes what kind of causality is at issue. In the classical world — particularly in Aquinas and the Neoplatonic tradition — God is not a proximate cause operating within the causal order. He is not a being in the world, but the ground of all being, the cause of causes. His causality is not like ours — it is ontological, not mechanical or voluntaristic. — Wayfarer

Here, again, I have no argument with this. I merely ask, does such a God love us?

I could've done that!
— J

Which is key to the whole thing. — Wayfarer

You do know I was kidding, right? I just meant that it doesn't seem like such a big ask, no earthquakes.

I'm sorry, I still don't think that is a fair assessment. It's a very Dawkins style depiction, God as a kind of cosmic film director, staging all of the action. I think it betrays a misunderstanding of the God that Dawkins doesn't believe in. A straw God, so to speak. — Wayfarer

(My own conception of God is not really as a being that "staged all the action.") I'm trying to stay true to the classic framing of a theodicy in the West, which conceives of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent. And I'm adding to that, the standard Abrahamic language of God as loving parent. If all of that is a misunderstanding of God, then the need for theodicy disappears, of course.

Which to me suggests the question, does the perversity and cruelty of existence negate its worth altogether. — Wayfarer

I hope not. But the point about egregious suffering may well extend to non-human creation too. I was trying to give the Abrahamic God a break by only committing their parental love to humans.

As to the suffering that is due to natural causes - the 2004 tsunami comes to mind as an example - how is that attributable to divine act? — Wayfarer

Not at all, directly. But we have to remember that God is not imagined merely as some actor in the drama, who can be held innocent or guilty of the various plot developments. God set up the whole thing. It seems fantastic to say that it was impossible for God to allow a planet to develop as a home for his beloved children that didn't have tectonic plate shifts. I mean, why not, for goodness' sake? I could've done that! :wink: Must we insist this is the best of all possible worlds?

Don't hold your breath! — Wayfarer

Especially for that last item! (truthful politicians)

I don't have a big stake in any of this modernity stuff. I'm kind of temperamentally allergic to sweeping statements about society, so please forgive me.

So you're basically just repeating the same line: an expectation that if a Creator was truly benevolent, then suffering would not exist. And I think it's a false expectation. — Wayfarer

I agree that some suffering might be unavoidable, of the "my child's necessary operation" variety. What counts against God as a loving parent, I think, is the vast amount of gratuitous suffering, at least as far as we can fathom it. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who asked, "Can't there just be less of it?" That doesn't strike me as a false or unreasonable expectation . . . if God really does love us.

And yes, the non-human world is full of suffering too, but God isn't supposed to be the loving parent of ants, on the Abrahamic account of things.

Which part of that isn't true? — Wayfarer

I have no idea. :smile: But, with respect, I don't think you do either. Let me turn it around: What would it take to falsify this statement?: "And that mental health crisis is itself due to and engaged with crises in the environment and the political system. And those in turn are immeshed within a deeper cultural historical crisis I call the meaning crisis." What sort of evidence would count decisively for or against this sweeping overview, to the extent that it could be declared simply true or false?

I've had occasion to say this before, but it bears repeating: I really appreciate your willingness to consider these questions with the care and thoroughness that you do.

I realize it would do, from your point of view, but I'm saying that even if one accepted the idea of a genuine, non-subjective sense of "wrong," it doesn't help generate an ought. As it happens, I do think there are objective/intersubjective values, quite apart from my personal opinions about them. But I don't agree with Count Timothy von Icarus and others that this creates a moral obligation simpliciter that can be expressed as "you ought to do X."

Can you explain any derivation of such a "moral ought?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, not as an absolute, non-hypothetical obligation. I don't think that can be done. When I say to you (anyone), "I think you ought to do X," what I mean is, "If you accept the values A, B, C, which you tell me you do, then you ought to do X." A lot of the unclarity around this discussion comes from denying the difference, epistemologically, between knowing what is of value, and knowing what one ought to do. You believe they involve the same process -- rationality, broadly -- and I do not. I think that recognizing moral (and aesthetic) values is non-rational -- people can't be shown them rationally -- and involves techniques that are at base experiential. However, once there is agreement on such values, the question of what one ought to do, given those values, becomes tractable.

Is this any help?

That is, you seem to be saying: "things are not good because they are truly desirable, but rather 'because something is 'morally good' the will has a sui generis 'moral ought' to seek it.'" — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, there's a third alternative, as I tried to outline above. There's nothing sui generis about the moral ought. It's a good old hypothetical imperative.* Where all the confusion comes in, is when we also try to claim that values are transparent to the rational mind in this way. This inevitably leads to the idea that values themselves could be "derived" in some way, from first premises. As I understand the question, they can't -- but that doesn't mean that everyone's perception/intuition/experience of values is equally correct. It's quite possible to perceive incorrectly. This is not a brief for ethical relativism.

Explain why something ought to be sought as an end because it is "morally good." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm afraid that the whole set-up with "ends" is part of the rationalist tradition about values which I find suspect. I hold "compassion" to be one of the key virtues. Do I believe that acting compassionately is an end in itself? In a way; it can't be rationally justified, anyway. But does that mean that no further ethical dilemmas can be posed -- that it will always be obvious what the compassionate choice is? Certainly not. So, in your terms, would you want to say that this represents an "end"? I honestly don't know how we should think about that.

I think you should probably take Alasdair MacIntyre's thesis as much more plausible after exchanges like these. Apparently, you think "moral goodness" doesn't necessarily depend on ends and that the will doesn't seek goodness as an appetite (as truly desirable) but rather that "if something is 'morally good,' there is a unique 'moral ought' that denotes that some end should be sought as an end for no reason (e.g. it being desirable) except that it is 'morally good.' — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe I understand you here. But doesn't MacIntyre say that Classical terms like "goodness" have lost their original meanings, in the modern context? And that therefore we shouldn't use them, unless we use them as the Greeks did? But that presupposes that conceptual development is precluded by a fixed vocabulary. Let's say I deny that "the will seeks goodness as an appetite (as truly desirable)." Wouldn't MacIntyre say that I am simply wrong about the will and about goodness, based on the only coherent meanings the words can have, i.e., their Classical roots? I don't find that thesis plausible, no, but I agree with him, and with you, that a thorough understanding of the conceptual development of key philosophical terms is important.


* I'm deliberately ignoring the Kantian categorical imperative in this discussion, since I don't think it represents the kind of "ought" you're interested in. I think there's a lot to be said for the cat. imp., but that's because it is procedural. It doesn't claim to generate the content of ethics. Anyway, a whole other discussion.

the crisis, if there is one . . . — Janus

This way of thinking, meaning no disrespect to @Wayfarer and others who've given it a lot of attention, seems like a litmus test of one's overall conceptual chemistry. The crisis one sees in "modernity" (another litmus-test word: what's that?) will reveal one's own take on how life and society ought to be organized. All I'm prepared to say with any assurance is that there is no crisis resulting directly from some intellectual moves that occurred in Europe in the 17th century. Not even the butterfly effect could make that plausible.

Christianity is not founded on the promise of earthly comfort, but on the fact of the crucifiction —a figure of suffering who shares in, rather than eliminates, the world’s pain. — Wayfarer

I agree, but I don't see how this gets God off the hook, so to speak. Why not have us all, God and Christ included, in a lot less pain?

the modern framing of divine love as analogous to human parental love. That may itself be part of the conceptual difficulty. We naturally imagine a “loving God” as a kind of celestial caregiver who would prevent harm, much as we would do for our own children. — Wayfarer

Jeez, I dunno. An impartial reading of the Gospels seems to show Jesus insisting that his Abba (Aramaic for "Daddy" or "Papa") is very much a loving parent as we would understand such a figure today. Sometimes stern, sure, but heartbroken in the face of suffering. And Jesus himself reproaches his father God for abandoning him on the cross.

I don't think the "modern parent" theory flies.

For Aquinas, suffering and death are not evils in themselves, — Wayfarer

So I understand. I'd file this under "the mysterious ways of God," as above. If being slowly tortured to death, or watching your son or daughter suffer the same fate while the guards laugh at you, is somehow to be justified as not "evil in itself," then clearly Aquinas is using a different and highly eccentric vocabulary, one which I can't pretend to understand.

the presence of suffering in nature is not evidence of divine malice. — Wayfarer

We don't need malice in order to defeat the theodicy. Indifference will do, and if you add in the fact that God designed the whole mess as well, I think "criminal negligence" would also be appropriate.

That amounts to the same thing . . .after a bit of regression — AmadeusD

I realize it would do, from your point of view, but I'm saying that even if one accepted the idea of a genuine, non-subjective sense of "wrong," it doesn't help generate an ought. As it happens, I do think there are objective/intersubjective values, quite apart from my personal opinions about them. But I don't agree with @Count Timothy von Icarus and others that this creates a moral obligation simpliciter that can be expressed as "you ought to do X."

"I felt I had to" would present an issue. Isn't that a more interesting avenue? — AmadeusD

Yes, that's a different case. Is it clear to you that it's even an ethical statement? I'm not sure. It sounds like a psychological description that could apply to many things, ethical or not. But I understand what you're trying to capture -- the sense that doing the right thing feels compelling, at a level below (or above) rational justification. Would an ethical subjectivist need to challenge that, do you think, and argue that the feeling is just that, a feeling, and doesn't point beyond itself?

Let's see what the Count has to say. I'm not sure I've understood him correctly. Then I'll respond to you more fully. But for now . . . I don't think the only other option is to add "because I don't want to" to explain a choice seen as obligatory. Suppose instead I added "because I think it's wrong." Does that generate an ought for anyone but me? In other words, the "ought" problem is bigger even than objective vs. subjective understandings of ethical values. It concerns universalizability.

A just dessert in the desert. — Hanover

Can I steal that line? :grin:

Ends are ordered to other ends. They either go on in an infinite regress, bottom out in irrational desires, or they are ordered to something sought for its own sake (e.g. happiness). — Count Timothy von Icarus

If I may pluck this statement out of its somewhat cantankerous conversational context :wink: . . .

You seem to be saying that, if something is sought for its own sake (by me, let's say), then I ought to seek it -- that this generates the moral ought. Or is it that, if I am seeking it for its own sake, then I ought to continue to seek it? This appears definitionally obvious to you, I'm guessing, but clearly others don't understand why. Nor do I. Why does it follow? Where does the obligation come in?

Let us call this the Hotel Manager Theodicy. It holds God to account for the conditions of the world in the same way one might complain about bad service. — Wayfarer

I like this! A good phrase that captures a major tenet of traditional theocidies.

Besides, nowhere in the sacred texts of East or West is there a promise that the world will be free of suffering. — Wayfarer

But here's the problem. There is a promise, in the Abrahamic religions, that God is a loving God, that God is love, that we may view God as we would a parent. The charge, then, is that this is completely inconsistent with the amount of suffering in the world. Not the fact of suffering as such, perhaps, but the sheer devastating omnipresence of it. And to short-circuit the Free Will Defense at this point, we can simply limit the suffering in question to the so-called natural evils -- disease, earthquake, accident, etc. What loving parent would do this to their children? "After all, life is supposed to be good, right?" No, this is the wrong point. God is supposed to be good.

But does God "do this"?

As others have commented, it makes a difference that God is not merely the manager of the hotel, but the architect and builder. It would require some highly abstract philosophical premises (along the "best of all possible worlds" line) to maintain that God has done the best they could. If that's so, then God's ways are truly mysterious to humanity; we are missing so many pieces of the theological puzzle that we might as well give up trying to understand it at all. Certainly "love" and "goodness" and "possibility" cannot mean the same thing to God as they do to us.

If suffering were to be eliminated, where exactly should the line be drawn? Is it enough that we only suffer head colds, not cancer? That no child is ever harmed, but adults might still endure misfortune? That natural disasters occur, but without casualties? — Wayfarer

The line can be drawn anywhere, to refute the theodicy. Use the parent analogy again. We expect a loving parent to permit suffering that is truly necessary (a painful operation for their child, perhaps) but firmly exclude anything else in their power, especially capricious and pointless pain. So if God could have, say, prevented the development of cancers in humans, but did not, then God is at fault. But likewise, if God could have arranged things so that a single volcano in Sri Lanka in the year 418 did not erupt, yet it did, God is equally at fault. No loving parent would do either one.

By the way, this whole idea of what God "could have arranged" is hard to discuss in reasonably scientific terms. What are we actually asking for? Some difference in the initial conditions, 14 billion years ago, such that eventually the Earth and its inhabitants would have different characteristics? I guess so. With God all things are possible, or at least we have to allow this for the purposes of the theodicy thought-experiment.

There is no longer any axis of salvation, no trajectory of the soul, no higher destiny against which the meaning of suffering might be understood. — Wayfarer

This suggests the only theodicy that I've ever been able to accept: Like Kant, I think we have to postulate an afterlife if we're to make sense of suffering, and God's reasons for creating things as they have. If this life is all there is, I would find the idea of a loving God absurd, and would reject all the theodicies I've ever seen. I would, I suppose, be a Buddhist. But with an "axis of salvation" a "higher destiny" understood literally as "death is not the end," we have additional possibilities.

Oh, yikes, I didn't mean the "fading fast" was a good thing! I'm with you -- public accountability is vital.

I thoroughly agree with everything you say here (until the last paragraph). To go from "each individual must make their own judgments, illuminated by reason and conscience as best they can" to "all individual judgments are equally perspicuous and moral" is the mistake, and a big one. I appreciate too your calling out the difference between inventing values and perceiving them properly. (You may not agree, but I'd consider the deduction of values from some intellectual first premises to be the same as inventing them, for all the defense that can be given of them.) What's needed is vision, noetic perception, self-knowledge, opening of the heart or third eye or [fill in favorite spiritual tradition]. I don't see relying on philosophy for that, though again you may disagree, and think more benevolently of it.

So, the last paragraph: "the authority of the individual is absolute, but the content of what they believe is seen as purely personal." Guess it depends who you're listening to. Among my friends, and based on the non-philosophical stuff I read, I'd say rather that there's a kind of double-mindedness about the whole matter. In one mood, Ben upholds his absolute right, and everybody's, to their own beliefs. In another mood, he's quick to invoke the most time-honored, religiously derived reasons why we should share his beliefs, and is very concerned that we understand and agree, impersonally! I think the need to provide public justification for private beliefs is still very strong, at least in the U.S. (though it may be fading fast), and that's a good thing.

Basically, I view morality as a process, — Dawnstorm

The descriptions you give seem pretty accurate to me, as a kind of sociology of moral behavior. As a philosopher, I'm not really entitled to an opinion about it, as I haven't studied these questions.

. . . and what it's "based" on is a bit chicken/egg. — Dawnstorm

Here, however, we enter philosophical territory, starting with the scare-quotes around "based"! Why the quotes? Do you mean to question whether there is a true basis for moral behavior, apart from social upbringing and norms? A fair question, but say more about the chicken/egg aspect.

Oh, I see. No, when I said that an obviously irrational ethical system would have been "dismissed" long ago, I meant, and perhaps should have said, "dismissed by serious philosophers who understand the conversation." If we require such a system to be dismissed by absolutely everyone, we'll have a long wait!

That said, Divine Command makes an interesting case. Is it irrational, exactly? Should it be dismissed? I could imagine a nuanced version that might pass muster. But if it refers to what some in the States call "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" religion, then no, not intellectually respectable.

Harris allows this too, expanding well-being to "all conscious creatures." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't know that. I think better of him for it.

But are you saying that the basis of virtue ethics is not "fulfilling the human good"? I thought that was the first principle for humans. That's what I doubt can generate the ethical "ought".

You and J both have denied goodness as a possible principle for ethics, — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. Rather, I don't see a way to use "good for human beings" to generate "I ought to do X." That's because I see "good for human beings" as only one dimension of ethics, not the first principle from which all else may be deduced.

Plenty of examples of why this is patently not the case! Divine Command theory being one. — AmadeusD

I actually don't know what that is. Could you explain the context? Thanks.

Yes, agreed, but we were discussing whether it's fair to say that Hume settled for a "hodgepodge stew" when it came to the passions and their relation to action. I don't think that's what you find at all in the Treatise (though I disagree with his conclusions, as do you). But I suppose that's another OP.

I'll try and explain what I meant by subjectivism. It's not as if it's a doctrine or school of thought; only that, for deep questions of value and meaning, as these are not necessarily adjudicable by science, then whatever is held about them, is said to be a personal matter, or a matter for individual judgement. — Wayfarer

Let's make it a little clearer. Deep questions of value and meaning are matters for individual judgment; how could they be otherwise? You can't look them up in a textbook. What you mean, I think, is that subjectivism believes that human judgment has no further court of appeal, where it might receive an answer as to whether the judgment is correct or not. In that sense, these judgments are either based on subjective considerations that don't necessarily hold from one person to the next, or they are unfounded by a first principle of rationality.

Liberalism as I understand it stops with the first statement: From the state's point of view, your individual judgment is just that, and we will not interfere or tell you you are right or wrong. But I certainly see what you mean about a "subjective attitude," if we can call it that, which wants to say all sorts of things about what value judgments are "really" based on. Most of these things, I disagree with, as do you. The ideal liberal state will have none of this.