Non-literal, abstract, impersonal gods, like mystical / ecstatic practices, are just latter-day attempts at slipping out of the 'mind forg'd manacles' of the literal God of priests, preachers, imams, rabbis, gurus ... sovereigns (i.e. "Big Others") and returning – as Gnostics envision? – to an animist milieu or condition – 'the source' (however, only as (genuinely free) individuals, not as "the people"). — 180 Proof

Do you think reason is a useful means of evaluating conceptions of God? I'm aware of its historical use in Natural Theology to 'demonstrate' the divine, but I wonder how far that can be taken. Everyone is convinced their use of reasoning is unassailable. Particularly the Thomists and their Preambula Fidei.

IMO, the philosophical accounts do not point to a God of religion. There may very well be a ground of being, but the big question is: does it exhibit intentionality? If not, then it points more to a natural ground of being. — Relativist

I wonder how useful a ground of being is to us as a concept and what it can mean, other than nebulous notions of foundational guarantee for truth, goodness and beauty.

Yes, and it's instructive to observe the disagreements here, how often people talk past each other, battling presuppositions rather than engaging with the actual arguments.

"You have to restrain your desire to respond and refute until you've thoroughly understood the philosopher or the position you're addressing. [And boy did he mean "thoroughly"!]. You really don't have a right to an opinion until you're sure you've achieved the most charitable, satisfying reading possible. Otherwise it's just a game of who can make the cleverer arguments." — J

Nice quote. My mum held a similar position. Great way to promote silence. It strikes me that a thorough understanding of anything is rare.

This is not the same thing as "interesting." Hume and Nietzsche are interesting. I am not sure if they are wise. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What counts as wise in your assessment. What are the indicators?

If philosophy is the love of wisdom, it is presumably the love of something in particular, and it would seem that not all philosophical positions are wise.

This is not the same thing as "interesting." Hume and Nietzsche are interesting. I am not sure if they are wise.

But, supposing that one thought that all philosophical positions were equally wise (and unwise), that there were no ethical, metaphysical, aesthetic, etc. truths, and thus that "understanding" should replace critique and argument—wouldn't this itself be the demand that everyone else conform to the beliefs/preferences of the skeptic/anti-realist? That is, a sort of declaration of "victory by default?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe. But I'm not sure anyone believes that all philosophy is equally wise. I'm not familiar enough with the literature to make any assessments on behalf of others.

It does often seem like there are people here who are trying to understand what others think, and others who want everyone to think like them.

I don't think these are mutually exclusive categories. If truth is preferable to falsity, wisdom to being unwise, then obviously one will want to lead others to the possession of whatever wisdom and truth they have. Wisdom and knowledge are not goods that diminish when shared, but goods that grow the more people partake in them. Hence, the motivation for "conversion" (as Rorty puts it).

But note that someone seeking conversion still has motivations for understanding other's positions. First, because believing one is likely correct is not the same thing as thinking oneself infallible or in possession of the total picture. Hence, in fearing error, and in wanting to round out their position, they have reason to understand other positions. Indeed, where different, disparate traditions agree, there is something of a "robustness check" on the underlying ideas. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think Rorty is probably right that philosophy is essentially a discursive project. The history of philosophy resembles a conversation in slow motion, one marked by fashions and phases, as well as by committed reactionaries and revolutionaries. But it is also a fairly sheltered discourse, since most people take little interest in it and are effectively excluded by barriers such as literacy, time, education, and inclination. As a result, there tend to be two conversational groupings: the intellectual 'elite', and the rest of us, who paddle around in the shallow end with the slogans, fragments, and half-digested presuppositions that trickle down.

Philosophy as a distinct activity doesn't seem to be widely practiced outside of hobbyists and academic settings. Where do you think it shows up in today's world (as a practice) and can you point to a demonstration of its efficacy?

You seem to agree with this but simply disliked the term 'dissatisfaction'. If I'm misunderstanding you, could you provide some reasoning for why you believe my statement is imprecise? So far I agree with the statements you've given. — Ourora Aureis

I guess I disagree with using terms like “dissatisfaction” or “a preference away from” in this context. If, for instance, we’re talking about an Axis I diagnosis, say, like schizoaffective disorder, we’re dealing with thought disorder, delusions, hallucinations, and lack of insight. I don’t think framing it in terms of dissatisfaction adds anything, we’re exploring something closer to chaos. But perhaps I don’t fully understand your intent.

I'm not arguing over terms, I'm saying his makes it no clearer or more precise.

And this difference can be seen in the difference of approach between various threads around the forums. There are those that set out almost uncritically to explain the finer points of the Doctrine of this or that philosopher, and there are those that mention an issue and seek to examine it by bringing to play the may critical tools developed over the years. — Banno

Interesting OP. It does often seem like there are people here who are trying to understand what others think, and others who want everyone to think like them.

think a more precise statement could be "mental suffering is a form of psychological suffering caused by dissatisfaction with experience." — Ourora Aureis

No, that would be even more imprecise. If we're talking about a psychotic illness such as schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia (to cite two examples), the distress is caused by delusions and persecutory thoughts over which the person has little or no control. To use a term like 'dissatisfaction with experience' would be almost comically euphemistic.

I assume that by "literalist" you mean those who accept the Christian bible as the revealed word of God. But, I've seen very few bible-thumpers on this forum. So most of the god-models that are discussed seem to be some variation on what Blaise Pascal derisively called the "god of the philosophers"* — Gnomon

Perhaps you assume that this site is only for talking to itself. In life, I meet many atheists who renounce a cartoon God and the literalists. Jordan Peterson (of whom I am not a fan) puts it like this: "Atheists don't understand the God they reject." I used to hear this from religious friends too. So this thread is partly to assist me to gain a survey of accounts of God that might be richer and more interesting, particularly when I talk to doctrinaire atheists in the 'real world' who think they have mastered the subject. But more generally, I am interested in what people believe and why.

Have you found any secular non-religious Philosophers who fit your definition of a nuanced notion of God? C.S. Pierce, A.N. Whitehead, Kurt Gödel, for example. — Gnomon

I'm more interested in conversations than wrestling with heavy texts. I'm not much of a consumer of philosophy works. Pierce is notoriously difficult to read, so I'll give him a miss. If someone wants to lay out Whitehead's God in this thread, I'll be interested. Whitehead seems to think God has limitations to their power; the omnis do not apply. He argues that God is a kind of apex of the good, and the necessary foundation of our metaphysics. It seems like the traditional account (e.g.,we need God to explain reason and order) but tempered to match modernity.

Do you have a robust reading of Whitehead or Godel's theisms?

Unlike the other two forms of suffering, mental suffering is fully within one's control. — Martijn

Unless they have a mental illness.

I also think that it is unrealistic to say to a mother who has lost her entire family to mass murder by a dictator, for example, that her suffering is within her control. There are events that occur from which only a sociopath could remain immune.

And I wonder about the fixation some have to shun the experience of suffering? Is there a salient reason why suffering should not be experienced in full on occasions? Is suffering not something human, tangible, appropriate and perhaps even useful in certain circumstances? For me, the desire to detach oneself or overcome suffering seems suspect.

There’s another category of suffering I could probably call esteem deprivation syndrome. This is the intense pain some people feel when they fail to gain glory, fame, or status, despite dedicating enormous time and effort to a crusade to be known or recognised in some way. We see a lot of this as people's vanity and ambition go unappreciated. This form of suffering would seem to be entirely self-inflicted and futile, but perhaps I'm being harsh.

I believe my answers to these are in my OP. If this is inadequate, I'm sorry.

Clearly, what I’m asking for is a survey of different, more philosophical accounts of theism to contrast with the literalist versions put forward by many apologists.

Why am I interested? Who knows? I’m curious about what people believe and why.

How would you describe that tradition : Orthodox Christianity? — Gnomon

Read him. I was taken by the accounts of God provided by the patristics - esp Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, particularly on the logos and the earlier redemption tradition. Not to mention the universalist position. My early reading was influenced by mystical traditions, figures like Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. Which was tempered somewhat by the mystical pragmatist J Krishnamurti. Hart seems to be is disliked by many (conservative) Christians because of his alignment with progressive politics and his interpretations of Christianity which support less authoritarian accounts of theism. He can certainly be an arrogant shit, but he's smart as a whip and from what I can gather, a Neoplatonist.

And the Constitution is just a piece of paper with some words, right? — RogueAI

Do you think the constitution and its legal protections are strong enough to withstand an authoritarian like Trump? Or do you think he will simply walk all over it with no or minimal opposition? After all, a Constitution isn't magic, what power will ensure it is upheld?

I'm not really sure what you mean when you refer to "transcendence," though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Did I mean "transcendental"? I actually meant a source of morality beyond the human, like God or Plato's forms, or anything external to humanity.

It occurred to me that Cicero might be an example of an ethics grounded in an understanding of human nature and telos that is more "naturalistic." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Could be, but do we even believe there’s such a thing as human nature? I'm not sure. We are a social species, and that tends to promote certain behaviors, like the codes of conduct we call morality. I’m just not sure how deep that really goes. I'm not partial to essentialism.

Of course it involves objectivity. You're specifically stating that the advancement of "our shared judgments and hopes" is the Good. Notwithstanding that fact that "our" is undefined here because who "our" encompasses in the antebellum south, Nazi Germany, and in the various less than humanistic societies over time would arrive at very different "shared judgments and hopes."

So, is rape wrong? That is, regardless of how a society values women, regardless of what some dictator might say or do, are you willing to go out on a limb and say "rape is wrong, anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the consensus."

If you're not, tell me the scenario where it's ok.

I don't think you will. What that means is we need to take seriously the objectivity of morality and figure out what we're talking about and not suggest there is some sort of preference or voting taking place. If you think there are principles that apply throughout all societies, you are going to be referencing the objective whether you like it or not. — Hanover

In asking for my view, you're speaking to someone socialised in the progressive West, so it’s hardly surprising that I affirm the belief that rape is wrong. But ask men in, say, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Then ask them about homosexuality, or even women’s rights. People tend to reflect the values of the cultures they’re raised in. That’s the point.

In fact, here in the West, marital rape wasn’t even considered a crime until the late 20th century. The most insidious forms of immoral behaviour must be those that aren't even recognised as problematic, perhaps trans bigotry today is such an example, where a man can never be seen as a woman…

So conversation is still needed to promote and enlarge empathy around the world. Where do you see the objectivity?

And sure, if we set a form of simple/minded human flourishing as the goal for our morality, we can devise some semblance of objective standards to achieve these. Is this what you mean? But the point surely is that flourishing looks different to different folk and we have nowhere to go to find justification, except discursively with each other in the knowledge that full agreement will never happen.

Your response rightly notes that in some cultures, even the most egregious human rights violations are considered accepted practice. We also know that racism, anti-trans bigotry, misogyny, and even that old standby, anti-Semitism, are still seen by many as acceptable, even in the West. They may even be growing. So yes, moral certainty is often claimed, but whose morality are we talking about? Where is your objective foundation to settle these questions?

But there is a bit of tension between these two terms:
“truth is not invented by humans” and
“truths become available within human discourse” — Fire Ologist

I guess the compromise for me might be to say that truth is a product of human beings, their interactions, and discourse. But perhaps the word truth is the problem, it's so ossified and redolent with pious meaning.

I think the precise point we are debating is whether quality is arbitrary or not. I am saying all is NOT arbitrary. If you are saying all is not arbitrary (as in, “…not arbitrarily”) then we agree. — Fire Ologist

I agree it's not arbitrary, there are frameworks and values underpinning our discourse. What they are not is universal or scientifically binding.

“You can have any opinion you want. But if you are trying to tell me I’m wrong, then you can’t have any opinion you want.” — Fire Ologist

Not sure I follow. My point can probably be summarised like this: all we have available is a discourse that identifies better and worse ways to achieve certain goals. Within that framework, we can say whether something is 'wrong'. That's why I gave my crude example, if you believe in human flourishing, then poisoning the town's water supply would appear to be the 'wrong' way to achieve it. But like 'truth', words like 'right' and 'wrong' are distorted by piety and a myriad preconceptions.

All I’m saying is if you want to have the opinion “all is arbitrary” you can. But if you want to correct me, about anything, you are actually saying something is not arbitrary, or you are lying, or contradicting yourself. — Fire Ologist

I'm not saying everything is arbitrary, It's the product of discourse over which we can deliberate. Just because we have no ultimate foundation for morality doesn't mean we can't identify goals and aims for how we live together. A starting point might be found in the fact that humans, as a social species, ususally try to avoid suffering and cruelty. What more do we need as a starting point?

Interesting reponses. Thanks.

"Godlike," "One True," etc., ...do pluralisms' detractors ever use this language? This language is only ever rolled to create a dichotomy to argue against, right? That might be an indication that it's a strawman. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, I’ve spent some time arguing with Hindus and Baptists who do indeed maintain that morality emanates from God’s nature or flows from the Godhead, etc. But I take your point, especially given what you write next.

The idea of a human telos doesn't require anything that transcends man. It merely requires something that transcends man's current sentiments, norms, and beliefs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well I guess I am arguing that pragmatic ethics is likely all we have, so if that's sufficient we are in agreement.

For example, it is bad for a bear to have its leg mangled in a bear trap because of what a bear is. Likewise, I'd argue that there are ways of living that are better and worse for man. No "Godlike" perspective is required to reach this judgement. This is observable through the senses. Being neglected is not good for children, being maimed is not good for human beings, education is conducive to human flourishing, etc.—at the very least, ceteris paribus. I would argue that these are facts about what man is that do not depend on current norms, yet neither do they depend on a god-like view, nor a view from nowhere. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep, so we're in agreement on this. We can identify a series of aims, and, subject to those aims (flourishing, well-being, etc.), identify better or worse ways to achieve them.

I'd argue that there are ways of living that are better and worse for man. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And this is where things can get tricky, the judgment about what is better or worse can become quite shrill very quickly. Still, I prefer 'better' and 'worse' to 'right' and 'wrong'.

Perhaps we can say truth is not invented by humans, but neither does it exist in some Platonic realm, independent of all interpretive conditions. Instead truths become available within human discourse—not arbitrarily, not as illusions, but as intelligible articulations of a world we are always already in relation with. — Banno

That’s sharper than my view and nicely put.

There’s probably a need to go deeper into this, partly as a way to address the ‘you can’t have values if there’s no external validation of the good’.

You can have any opinion you want. But if you are trying to tell me I’m wrong, then you can’t have any opinion you want. — Fire Ologist

No, this misses something. We do not need to have absolute right and wrong to have a debate about value. Society is the product of discursive practices, we have an ongoing conversation about how we want to live together. Certain ways of living work better to achieve certain results. You don’t need a God’s-eye view of reality to make such choices.

It should be obvious that if you want a village to flourish (however that might look to you), poisoning the entire water supply will not achieve that goal. We can choose goals and aims without requiring non-human views of reality.

And in this way, I can challenge your opinions within the context of how we wish to live together. I am probably not going to say you are 'wrong' as such, more that a given view or course of proposed action may not be helpful, subject to a goal.

This is spot on. It marks the link here between Tim's approach to aesthetics and his comments against liberalism and in favour of elite education. — Banno

I think @Count Timothy von Icarus is well-read, a deep thinker and orients himself within the classical tradition, like some others here. It seems to me that for some people, philosophy revolves around finding non-human justifications, while for others, it’s a discursive process we have with ourselves.

If that is the case, why are you posting on a Philosophy Forum? Did you expect responses to your OP to be lists of hard Facts? What is Philosophy, if not "speculations" beyond the range of our physical senses, into the invisible realm of Ideas, Concepts, and Opinions? — Gnomon

You are difficult to have a discussion with because you seem to keep turning it into battles you think you’re having with people, instead of actually reading what I’m saying. None of the points you raise apply to my position.

As you probably know, philosophy covers a wide range of activities, some more speculative and requiring specialized expertise than others. Speculations about QM fall into this category, demanding a high level of technical knowledge. So does a good reading of Heidegger, for instance. Other subjects, like morality, value, aesthetics, and meaning, are more suited to open, discursive exploration.

What do you find "intriguing" about Idealism? Does it complement or challenge your commitment to Pragmatism & Physicalism? Or does it provide a larger context for your mundane worldview? Is your pet dog "committed to physicalism"? Doggy Ideal : food in bowl good. What does he/she know that you don't? — Gnomon

I’m trying to read this charitably. Is condescension something you tend to fall back on when challenged? What exactly were you trying to express here?

I'd say there is no proper orientation towards the world.

So, then Hitler, Stalin, and the BTK killer represent equally valid orientations towards being as anyone else? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's funny how people always reach for Hitler in these discussions. Why not Pol Pot, surely a satisfying enough human rights violator in his own right?

Like many people, you assume there's a need for a universal moral standard that tells us the right way to relate to the world. I'm positing that no such standard exists. That doesn’t mean I approve of people like Hitler or whoever, just that I don't believe there's some higher, absolute scale to measure orientations to the world.

But note: we can still judge and reject them, but we do so from our own perspective, not from some objective, godlike viewpoint.

It's perfectly legitimate to condemn Hitler or Pol Pot on the basis that they do not create the society we wish to build. This is a discursive process. Not all all values are equally appealing or equally helpful for us as human beings trying to live together.

It seems to me that this is all culture ever does - balance pluralism and proffer assessments and values based on human-made frameworks. We don't get access to some objective standpoint outside all human values.

Besides, even if one believes the good is something non-human or absolute, people will still disagree. Some will passionately insist that their Pol Pots or their Trumps represent the way forward and the true path. Appealing to an absolute standard of the good doesn’t settle the issue, it merely relocates the disagreement to whose interpretation of that standard prevails.

If beauty were created by man and his practices, I'd contend that there would be no proper orientation towards the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd say there is no proper orientation towards the world.

And if there is no proper orientation to the world, then something like Huxley's A Brave New World has no aesthetic defects. The wilderness, sunsets, flowers, love, commitment, romance, justice, parenthood—these are hideous because society has said that they are so, and people have been conditioned accordingly. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't see how this follows. It feels like this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just because something doesn't have a transcendent source doesn't mean it's nothing or we can readily reverse perspectives at will. (Although, grant you, in some areas we've almost done this - slavery, women's rights, our more recent changing understanding of gender) Human taste has a lively intersubjective dimension, it's a contingent but powerful force based on our interactions with the world. And although it evolves and changes over time and is the product of contingent factors, it still matters to us and we can talk about it and cultivate views. I think some of those views can be pigheaded attempts at objectivist dictatorialism, but that's people, right?

Plus, I find it particularly strange that this sort of theory of man's creative powers is so often couched in terms of epistemic humility, since it is saying that all Goodness, Beauty, and Truth in the cosmos is the work of man's will—that man is essentially God, making things what they are, bestowing onto them their unity, goodness, purpose, and beauty. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, well I know it isn't a unique view but my position is that goodness, truth, and beauty are not transcendentals but are contingent products of culture and language. I don’t think we are God so much as we see the world in certain ways and create the frameworks that give gods their life.

And that's all? If one thing can come from nothing, why not anything more? Why just this one thing? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It was just a quip. But I would say that concepts like God, goodness, evil, and charity are human constructs—they arise from human experience and imagination rather than existing independently.

The notion that something can come from nothing is typically embraced by those invested in teleological arguments for transcendence.

Can man create something from nothing? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. The notion of beauty.

If you are not a materialist or a scientist, do you use any alternative term to describe your metaphysical worldview* — Gnomon

No. I guess I'm a kind of simple-minded pragmatist. I do not have any commitments to capital T truth and consider our grasp of reality to be a contingent product of culture and language.

There are no antirealists in foxholes.[/quote]

Yes, I think it was Simon Blackburn who said that the moment a philosopher of any stripe leaves his house, he's committed to realism. Pragmatically that's the world we know, whatever there might beyond human understanding. Personally, I have a limited capacity or interest in speculations - you have a much more intense curiosity and deeper reading than me.

What was your motivation for posting this topic : "I'm interested in conversations about more sophisticated and philosophical accounts of theism"? — Gnomon

This from the OP

It's often argued that atheists focus their critiques on simplistic or caricatured versions of God, especially the kind found in certain forms of American Protestantism, with its mawkish literalism and culture-war pontifications, often aligned with Trump. These "cartoon gods" seem all too easy to dismiss. The famous low hanging fruit.

In contrast, more nuanced conceptions of God, such as Paul Tillich’s idea of God as the "Ground of Being" or David Bentley Hart’s articulation of God as Being itself - represent attempts to have this conversation in metaphysical terms rather than anthropomorphic ones.

When God is described as the Ground of Being, this typically means that God is the fundamental reality or underlying source from which all things emerge. God is not seen as a being within the universe, but rather as the condition for existence itself. The implications of such a view are interesting. — Tom Storm

Your next statement and its formulation (like an apologist) is a reason I guessed you are riffing off the beliefs of your youth. You can't resist bagging materialists at most opportunities when there are so few, if any, on this site.

Does that notion offend your Immanentist sensibilities, as it does for 180? Does Quantum Physics contradict your Materialist worldview? — Gnomon

I am not a materialist. I find idealism intriguing. I have no expertise in quantum physics and I know most physicists remain committed to physicalism - what do they know that you and I don't? I couldn't say and it's not my area.

You list out objective criteria for determining morality: — Hanover

No, they are not objective criteria nor do i lay them out as my version. I'm saying that this is what generally happens in the pluralistic West.

These rules are not universal and it is not a universal truth that morality is to be found through reason. That's not even the rule within traditional theistic systems within the West (i.e. divine command theory). — Hanover

They are not rules and I do not say they are universal, but I do think they are practiced widely in the West. Possibly elsewhere, I have not made a survey.

And how do you know your moral basis is right (whether it be the Bible, your 10 point system, Utliltarianism, Kantianism, or whatever), you just do. This is where faith rears its ugly (or clarifying) head once again. — Hanover

I don't think so. Firstly, we don’t know what is right. There's no neutral, context-free standpoint from which to declare one moral system universally right.

We can probably start with a goal, something like reducing suffering. No need for faith in the religious sense although we'd acknowledge the religious values that run through Western thinking. We might have a view that certain systems work better for people than others, but again, that's the ongoing conversation humans have with each other.

Which provides a safer culture: Islamic theocracy or Western-style democracy? Which parts of democracy aren’t working? It's the conversation we have, and are having, and we can agree on goals we want and situations we want to avoid. None of this involves objectivity, it's more like a recipe made out of our shared judgements and hopes.

The question of moral realism is not whether we know for certain what every moral justification is, but it's whether there are absolute moral rules that we are seeking to discover. If the answer is that there is not, that it's just a matter of preference, then we are left asking why we can impose our idiosyncratic rules on others. If, though, you say there is an objective good, we can impose our assessement of what they are on others, recognizing we could be wrong in our assessment. However, to do this will require us to say that we assess morality based upon X because that basis is right, and if you don't use X, you are wrong. Once you've taken that step, you stepped outside of subjectivity and you've declared an absolute truth. — Hanover

In reflecting on your response, I would say that calling someone morally 'wrong' doesn’t require escaping subjectivity or appealing to some higher moral realm; it means staying grounded in our shared world, giving reasons, listening carefully, and trying to find common ground. We don’t need absolute foundations to act; we need commitment, dialogue, and the willingness to stand by our views while accepting they’re always open to challenge.

Then again, maybe that’s the Calvinist in you talking. — Jacques

:rofl:

if a book feels like self-mortification, — Jacques

More like self-overcoming. I tend to hold good art should challenge and offer new ways of seeing. But maybe I'm doing it wrong. I do most things wrong so that's ok.

In my opinion, the value of a novel lies in its ability to captivate me from the first page to the last—so compelling that I can’t put it down and regret how quickly the remaining pages dwindle. — Jacques

My favourite novels often weren’t enjoyable at first. They grew on me, and the initial struggle with the author transformed me as I persisted. I didn’t come away simply entertained, I came away enlarged. I remember fighting with George Eliot in Middlemarch and with Faulkner in As I Lay Dying. In the end, I got through, and the effort itself felt like an achievement. For me, reading great novels isn’t always about immediate pleasure; it’s more like climbing a mountain, demanding, sometimes punishing, but meaningful precisely because of the journey into unfamiliar territory and even the sacrifices required.

think that faith, if it is ever to count as a good thing, must be the willingness to start on a project, accepting the risk of failure, but willing to see it through to the end anyway — Ludwig V

Except that we know that some people achieve success despite all the odds and setbacks, just look at any list of entrepreneurs or Hollywood stars. This evidence of success, despite barriers and failures is why some people think it's worth taking chances. I'd argue that faith in something which cannot be demonstrated follows a very different trajectory.

Then upon what basis do you condemn their acts you find abhorrent? You have your preferences and they theirs. — Hanover

This is to the point - ↪Hanover wants a "basis" so he can "condemn their art you find abhorrent"; and that basis is all around us and includes our community of learning and language. — Banno

Am I bound by the consensus of the West, the US, the Southern US, my ethnicity, my religious heritage, my compound of similar thinkers? Can't it be that the entirety of my community could be wrong, yet I am right? — Hanover

Yes, to all of the above. That’s the condition we’ve always lived in. It seems to me morality emerges from a shifting balance of perspectives, shaped by history, culture, conversation, and imagination. There is no final foundation, only the ongoing work of negotiation, persuasion, and a hope for common ground. And yes, some cultures do lose this fragile balance though war or vested interests and anarchy results.

But I can already hear some asking but what does common ground matter if there's no objectivity? We are motivated by the desire to live with others without constant fear or conflict, to reduce suffering (our own and others), to be understood, to feel belonging, to imagine a world less cruel or arbitrary. Even without objectivity, these needs and aspirations don’t disappear. We don’t act because we’ve found final truths, but because we live among others, and must find ways to manage that fact.

It is wrong to murder.

Ice cream tastes good — Hanover

I don’t know if murder is wrong in any objective sense, beyond the fact that it's a proscribed activity under the law. And even, more generally, “killing” in itself isn’t necessarily wrong; I can easily imagine situations where it might be justified. But cultures that permit casual killing among the population tend to be unsafe and verge on anarchy.

But what about something more extreme, how about killing babies for sport? That seems like a clearer case. I’d have to say we would find broad, almost universal agreement that this is abhorrent. (Not that it stops countries at war from energetically mowing down children as part of the process.) So while I might hesitate to call it “objectively” wrong in a metaphysical sense, there is a strong intersubjective consensus. I’d say the prohibitions and values of my culture have been passed down to me, so I share in teh consensus that finds killing babies abhorrent.

But a consensus like this doesn’t rest on some timeless truth. It rests on who we’ve become as a species, it rests on shared stories, emotions, and histories that shape our moral imagination. It’s not that we know such an act is wrong in some final sense; it’s that we’ve learned not to be the kind of people who could consider it. (Again, unless you're in one of the many war-torn countries where such horrors are treated as routine.)

...disagreement can only take place against, and so presupposes, a background of agreement, instead of saying it presupposes objectivity. — Banno

Is what I wrote above an example of such a background of agreement or have I strayed too far?

That word - objective - again causes more confusion than clarity.

If ↪Jamal had only said that disagreement can only take place against, and so presupposes, a background of agreement, instead of saying it presupposes objectivity. — Banno

I can probably work with this. Language is such a bastard!

:up:

Disagreement doesn’t disprove objectivity; it presupposes it. — Jamal

I can see how this works and there's an intuitive appeal to it, after all, if people are disagreeing, they seem to be appealing to some shared standard, however vaguely defined. But I remain ambivalent.

Isn’t it also possible that disagreement just reflects a clash of preferences or worldviews, with no stable objectivity underneath? When I respond to your view here, am I really engaging in a rational pursuit of truth, or am I simply performing a kind of power move, attempting to universalise my own subjective stance?

Even the very structure of philosophical debate sometimes feels less like a search for objective truth and more like a struggle over whose lens on the world becomes dominant. In that case, disagreement doesn’t so much presuppose objectivity as it performs a social contest, perhaps masked, by the language of reason. Or something like this.

And yes, this implies that all discourse is problematic, ultimately lacking foundation. You raise the idea of intersubjective agreement or epistemic communities. But does that amount to a form of objectivism, or is it merely a cluster of like-minded individuals reinforcing a shared orthodoxy? After all, what counts as “evidence” or “sound reasoning” within such communities is often defined by the very group that claims to be rational. So are we talking about objective standards, or just mutual reinforcement dressed up as epistemic legitimacy?

Thanks. Now that we have established that my philosophical worldview is not a religious search for a "safe place" in heaven, let's consider what it actually is. And what it does not entail. — Gnomon

No. You’re jumping the gun. A ‘safe place’ just means whatever gives you comfort. I wouldn’t have thought heaven was a candidate here, why would you? I notice that you’re still seem to be riffing off the religion of your youth, which for whatever reason fails to support you in your sense making. That’s understandable and many do likewise. But that’s not my ‘path’, so given we don’t share suppositions, and the fact that I’m not a physicist or scientist, I don’t generally get into speculative cosmology.

But faith is basically always the same qua faith, it just may be self-deluded, or misplaced if the person or thing one has faith in is not reasonable or worthy. — Fire Ologist

That makes sense and I guess would match my understanding of it. If this is the case, how does one determine when a faith is appropriate?

Do you think faith only has to do with a lack of reason and knowledge? — Fire Ologist

From what I've read here, I think we probably need specific examples of faith in action in order to assess whether or not it is reasonable. If someone says they have faith that Trump will make America great again, as I’ve heard from several Christians, then I would doubt that faith is a reliable or useful path. If they say they have faith that Black people are inferior, which I have heard from white South African Protestants, then I would also consider that kind of faith to be mistaken.

As I’ve said before, if “faith” just means “trust,” then I’d prefer to use the word “trust” instead. And presumably if we have trust in something there are likely good reasons for this - eg medicine. For me, “faith” often implies belief without evidence, possibly without good reason, and perhaps even in the face of contrary evidence. But let's not return to this, since we'll probably just go around covering the same ground in a kind of endless regression. :wink:

Acceptance of truth on authority is something we do all the time, as in medicine, where we trust the authority of doctors, or in schools, where we trust the authority of teachers. In these cases the truth that we do not know ourselves but accept from others is a truth we could come to know ourselves if we went through the right training. In the case of divinely revealed truth, we can, ex hypothesi, never know it directly for ourselves (at least not in this life), but only on authority. The name we give to acceptance of truth on authority is “faith.” Faith is of truth; it is knowledge; it is knowledge derived from authority; it is rational. These features are present in the case of putting faith in what a doctor tells us about our health. What we know in this way is truth (it is truth about our health); it is knowledge (it is a coming to have what the doctor has, though not as the doctor has it); it is based on authority (it is based on the authority of the doctor); it is rational (it is rational to accept the authority of one’s doctor, ceteris paribus). Such knowledge is indirect. It goes to the truth through another. But it is knowledge. The difference is between knowing, say, that water is H2O because a chemist has told us and knowing that water is H2O because we have ourselves performed the experiments that prove it. The first is knowledge by faith, and the second is knowledge direct.
— Peter L. P. Simpson, Political Illiberalism, 108-9

Good stuff. — Fire Ologist

Do you think a follower’s faith in a guru is of the same nature as a patient’s trust in a doctor? And what if the roles were reversed; if the person were receiving medical advice from the guru and spiritual guidance from the doctor?

Logical. mathematical and empirical truths are "one for all", not so much metaphysical "truths". The point is if there are metaphysical truths, we don't and can't know what they are, or even if you want to say they could be known by "enlightened" individuals, it still remains that they cannot be demonstrated. — Janus

This seems right to me. I suppose some people might argue that there are intersubjective agreements about metaphysical truths, such as the existence of God or the idea that human beings have a soul.

Definitely you are correct there could be many good personal reasons we can't know about to erase an account. We cannot know for certain. — boethius

:up: No worries.