A More Localized Version of the Argument From Morality

[Bradski]

If that is the case, then it is indicative that our instincts or their source(s) have a personality or an intelligence of some kind since non-rational matter simply cannot define anything like morality. That requires a mind of some kind. That is why people attribute moral truth to a higher intelligence.

It requires no mind. It needs no intelligence. Let me try this…

If you are an elephant with large tusks then you are at a greater risk of being killed for the ivory than your pachyderm pal who has smaller tusks. There is a certain degree of natural variation as regards tusk length but it’s a fair bet that your father had large tusks and he’s passed on this genetic propensity to you.

There’s a lot of poaching going on and tough luck, you get shot. As do many other elephants with large tusks. So they are removed from the gene pool. By artificial means in this case, but the principle will be the same.

So what will generally increase the chances of you surviving long enough to father lots of little elephants? Smaller tusks, obviously. And who is now over represented in the elephant population? Those elephants with smaller tusks. And what size tusks will their offspring have? Generally they will be smaller as well. So what do we see in actuality? telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3322455/Why-elephants-are-not-so-long-in-the-tusk.html

Now is there any mind at work here? Is there any intelligence? Well, we can say that this system has been put into place by God to ensure the survival of elephants. So what system has He put in place to ensure the survival of mankind? He has set things up so that those who exhibit altruistic behaviour generally have a greater chance of survival than those who don’t.

 

[Bradski]

I sort of addressed this in my very last reply. Nature dictates what is good for our survival but that is not always synonymous with moral good. Nature can be questioned. Maybe nature is wrong to compel our species to survive. Maybe I should seek to maximize my enjoyment in life rather than make sacrifices that will benefit future generations and produce no benefits for myself.

You are free to do this. Catholics put great empasis on the fact that God has given us free will so you can decide yourself whether to follow your natural instincts to help others or not.

But we don’t need everyone to ‘follow the rules’ for the whole shebang to work. We just need the majority of people to do it.

 

[Bradski]

And, at the end of the day, I’d assert, there’s an objective and true claim about the morality of actions that can be made for each such situation – even if there’s debate or a lack of consensus about it.

I would say that there are objective facts which can be determined in any situation with a moral component. Whether those facts can be used to class the situation as moral or immoral is often a matter of personal opinion.

 

[Bradski]

Let me accept this - provisionally, and see where it leads. If the proposition is fully qualified, it means that it needs no relation to other things. But that leads to absurdity: “it is morally wrong to kill in self-defense on Friday afternoon in the Central park on a rainy day”. This proposition is “fully qualified”, it needs no “other things”. But no one would consider it an “absolute proposition” - much less accept it as valid.

Exactly right and well put. I was already working out a similar example when you posted yours so I’ll post it anyway.

‘It’s acceptable to kill someone IF you are at war and IF the other peron is armed and IF they are a direct OR potential threat to you OR your colleagues and IF there are no other options and IF it is done as humanely as possible and IF you have given the person ample opportunity to surrender’.

Some people would insist that that is an absolute statement.

 

[o_mlly]

Pagans practiced human sacrifice, infanticide, gladiatorial combat to entertain audiences, mandatory worship of human emperors as Gods, and the passing on of their traditions to the next generation, without tolerating discussion of alternatives to those traditions.

And your point is?

 

[Gorgias]

Good starting point, but I see a serious problem. Both of these propositions can be extended with either “under any and all conditions” or “under some circumstances”.

According to Bradski, the rules of the game are that you cannot extend the sentence in a way that changes it – doing so takes away the ‘absoluteness’ of the statement. So, I wouldn’t call this a ‘problem’; instead, I’d say that the former extension merely makes explicit what the statement says, and that the latter extension explicitly changes the statement in question.

Now which one of these possible extensions is included “implicitly”? If one implies the first one, it will create two absolute statements.

I would counter that the statements are already absolute, and so the extension doesn’t ‘create’ anything that isn’t already there.

Let me accept this - provisionally, and see where it leads. If the proposition is fully qualified, it means that it needs no relation to other things. But that leads to absurdity: “it is morally wrong to kill in self-defense on Friday afternoon in the Central park on a rainy day”. This proposition is “fully qualified”, it needs no “other things”. But no one would consider it an “absolute proposition” - much less accept it as valid.

No – it’s still absolute. The only thing you’ve done is narrowed the scope of what it describes in an absolute manner. If you meet the criteria of the statement (self-defense, Friday, Central Park, rainy day), then it absolutely makes an assertion about morality. (After all, you didn’t specify whether the killer or victim was a male human, female human, or lemur of either gender.)

Moreover, you make an appeal to the truth value of the statement. Our goal here is to discuss the nature of the statement (absolute or relative), not its truth value, so we’re deferring that discussion. (In any case, an absolute statement is absolute, regardless whether it’s true or false. “I am a German Shepherd puppy” is an absolute statement, whether or not it’s true. )

Just because the circumstances are embedded in the proposition, it will not change from a relative statement to an absolute one.

I think you meant that in the other direction, right? Bradski’s assertion is that, when we add context or circumstance to an assertion, we change it from absolute to relative. If that’s what you’re trying to say, then I think we’re safe – adding circumstance doesn’t, in fact, necessarily change a statement from absolute to relative.

Take any proposition and append “under any and all circumstances, regardless of who performs the acts, why is the act performed and under what additional circumstances it is performed”. THAT would be an absolute statement. Take any proposition and append “under certain, well defined circumstances” and you will get a conditional (relative) statement.

Agreed.

And, without the explicit qualifiers, I think we would have to expect that statements that don’t specify circumstances don’t suggest them, either.

So I suggest that a proposition is absolute if it does not contain any - either explicit or implicit - qualifiers.

Yes and no. A statement with explicit qualifiers isn’t necessarily relative (“I’m a brown, overweight German Shepherd puppy” is an absolute statement. A statement without qualifiers doesn’t have implicit qualifiers, and therefore, you’d have to make your case about the presence of necessary and ‘implicit’ qualifiers. You haven’t done that here. (You’ve shown that if there are implicit qualifiers, they modify the statement – but you haven’t demonstrated that implicit qualifiers exist.)

 

[Bradski]

A statement with explicit qualifiers isn’t necessarily relative (“I’m a brown, overweight German Shepherd puppy” is an absolute statement. A statement without qualifiers doesn’t have implicit qualifiers, and therefore, you’d have to make your case about the presence of necessary and ‘implicit’ qualifiers. You haven’t done that here. (You’ve shown that if there are implicit qualifiers, they modify the statement – but you haven’t demonstrated that implicit qualifiers exist.)

Let’s not confuse objective factual statements with moral propositions (which you would like to define as being absolute). There is a whole world of difference in saying that something is morally wrong and making objective statements.

A relative statement will contain IF and OR such as: ‘It is wrong to steal IF it is done to support a drug habit OR to save you having to work honestly’.

The statement you just made is simply a list of objective facts linked (implicitly) with AND: ‘I am a dog. AND I am 3 months old. AND I am brown. AND I am heavier than I should be. AND my breed is German Shepherd’.

There is no need for anyone to give an opinion on that to render any part of the statement true or false. They are true regardless of what anyone thinks. You cannot give any reasons for making any part of that sentence true. They stand alone.

But you can give reasons why someone shouldn’t steal specifically to support a drug habit, as opposed to saving a child from dying from hunger. One is not acceptable and the other is. So ‘stealing is wrong’, which is, as we keep pointing out, an absolute statement, doesn’t stand on its own. It needs qualification. It needs a relative clause. It needs an argument.

 

[Gorgias]

Let’s not confuse objective factual statements with moral propositions (which you would like to define as being absolute). There is a whole world of difference in saying that something is morally wrong and making objective statements.

Oh, we haven’t even come close to being able to make that distinction. We’re still trying to decide what it means to assert that a statement is ‘absolute’.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

No – it’s still absolute. The only thing you’ve done is narrowed the scope of what it describes in an absolute manner. If you meet the criteria of the statement (self-defense, Friday, Central Park, rainy day), then it absolutely makes an assertion about morality.

Sorry, that makes no sense. The usual contention is about something like “X is a moral (or immoral) action under any and all circumstances”. THAT is an absolute utterance. As soon as we start to talk about “X is a moral (or immoral) action in these specific circumstances” we have a relative proposition. If one simply says “X is moral (or immoral)” in an ethical conversation, it implicitly contains “under any and all circumstances”.

And, without the explicit qualifiers, I think we would have to expect that statements that don’t specify circumstances don’t suggest them, either.

In that case the proposition is neither absolute nor relative, it is an undefined statement. If one says “X is Y”, and nothing else, there is no ground to declare it either absolute or relative. So the first step is to ask for clarification, and THEN the actual conversation can commence. Of course many Catholic posters talk about “absolute morality”, and they mean “under any and all circumstances”.

Factual statements are fundamentally different from moral propositions. Factual statements deal with “IS” type of propositions, while moral questions deal with “OUGHT” types of propositions. One should not expect to use the same type epistemological process for fundamentally different types of problems.

 

[PRmerger]

Factual statements are fundamentally different from moral propositions.

Perhaps.

But factual statements are fundamentally similar to moral facts.

So, it is a MORAL FACT that it was wrong to kill 6 million Jews (as well as Catholics, Roma, homosexuals, etc etc etc) in the 1940’s.

That’s no different than this factual statement: Donald Trump is president-elect of the USA.

 

[Bradski]

Oh, we haven’t even come close to being able to make that distinction. We’re still trying to decide what it means to assert that a statement is ‘absolute’.

That’s like saying that we are still trying to decide what objective means. We can’t make up definitions to suit our arguments. If I say that: ‘Obama is the American president’ is an objective statement, you cannot say: ‘Well, that’s not what I mean by objective’. It IS an objective statement.

The word means what it means. There are no options. Objective means not influenced by personal preferences or opinion. Period. And absolute means not qualified in any way, not relative to anything, not conditional on anything. Period.

The only question one can ask if someone proposes an absolute statement (which cannot by definition contain any qualifiers or state any specific conditions) in regard to morality is: ‘Is the statement valid under all conditions at all times’. If it is, then it qualifies as an absolute statement. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.

That said, if you want to qualify your statement in some way, then we can all discuss if it is always moral or not under the conditions which you have specified. So to use a previous example: ‘It is always immoral to kill your daughter if she has been raped’.

That’s a statement about causing harm in a particular way to a particular person under specific conditions. So, one more time, it cannot by definition be an absolute statement. Now if you want to argue that that specific act of harm to a specific person at a particular time under specific conditions is wrong in itself then go for it. You can also use the word ‘absolutely’ as it is used in everyday speech (‘that’s absolutely disgusting’, ‘you are absolutely right’).

But we are not discussing the (generally incorrect) way that people use the term when chatting at the water cooler. We are discussing the philosophical validity of absolute morality.

 

[Bradski]

Perhaps.

But factual statements are fundamentally similar to moral facts.

So, it is a MORAL FACT that it was wrong to kill 6 million Jews (as well as Catholics, Roma, homosexuals, etc etc etc) in the 1940’s.

That’s no different than this factual statement: Donald Trump is president-elect of the USA.

The two statements are categorically different. Objective facts and moral statements are not the same. Otherwise I can say that ‘killing animals for food is wrong’ is a moral fact.

 

[PRmerger]

The two statements are categorically different. Objective facts and moral statements are not the same.

It’s astonishing to me to hear atheists arguing for morality make statements like this ^^.

If it’s not a moral, objective fact that killing 6 million people was wrong…then…well, that’s what makes your moral worldview so otiose.

“I’m not sure if it was right or wrong” says the atheist.
“Maybe it’s wrong for me. I could never do it. But I could never say that it’s a fact: doing this is wrong”.

What a limp and tepid moral worldview.

 

[Bradski]

It’s astonishing to me to hear atheists arguing for morality make statements like this ^^.

If it’s not a moral, objective fact that killing 6 million people was wrong…then…well, that’s what makes your moral worldview so otiose.

“I’m not sure if it was right or wrong” says the atheist.
“Maybe it’s wrong for me. I could never do it. But I could never say that it’s a fact: doing this is wrong”.

What a limp and tepid moral worldview.

If you think that something being obviously wrong makes it therefore objectively wrong then all you are doing is exhibiting the fact that you don’t understand the tems being used.

If everyone on the planet agreed that it was wrong and if there was zero doubt in every single person’s mind that it was horribly wrong and and if every person was quite willing to say that they KNEW it was wrong and it was wrong beyong any possible argument anyone could ever give, it would STILL not make it an objective fact.

You cannot redefine philosophical terms to suit yourself simply because it sounds better to you. But this is what you are doing. There are no arguments that any reasonable person could put forward against my statement? Well, it must be objective…

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

If you think that something being obviously wrong makes it therefore objectively wrong then all you are doing is exhibiting the fact that you don’t understand the tems being used.

And that IS the case. She simply does not understand.

For any “objective” proposition there needs to be an “objective” epistemological method which will separate the “true” propositions from the “false” ones. The solution is “acidic” as opposed to the solution is “alkaline” can be decided by a litmus test - no opinion is involved. The proposition of “killing 6 million Jews is wrong” can be considered correct by billions of people, but that agreement does not translate to an objective “truth”… unless you subscribe to the principle that “majority makes right” - but she will never understand this…

 

[Gorgias]

Sorry, that makes no sense. The usual contention is about something like “X is a moral (or immoral) action under any and all circumstances”. THAT is an absolute utterance. As soon as we start to talk about “X is a moral (or immoral) action in these specific circumstances” we have a relative proposition. If one simply says “X is moral (or immoral)” in an ethical conversation, it implicitly contains “under any and all circumstances”.

Fair enough… but you seem to want to have control over how the “X” in that statement is constructed. As long as there is an “X” – about which we can talk “under any and all circumstances” – we’re good to go. It doesn’t matter whether that “X” is quite abstract, or if it is rather precisely defined; all that matters – in the scope of the question of whether it’s “absolute” – is whether we can frame it up as a specification (that, as you point out, holds “under any and all circumstances”).

Factual statements are fundamentally different from moral propositions. Factual statements deal with “IS” type of propositions, while moral questions deal with “OUGHT” types of propositions. One should not expect to use the same type epistemological process for fundamentally different types of problems.

Moral questions really do deal with things that “IS” (if you’ll excuse the grammatical license). A moral proposition doesn’t say “murder ought to be wrong” – it says “murder is wrong”. Nice try, though.

 

[Gorgias]

We can’t make up definitions to suit our arguments.

This isn’t a question of definition – it’s a question of the interpretation of a definition. If you’re claiming that you, alone, have the right to interpret the definition of ‘absolute’, you’ll have to justify your special pleading. Otherwise, I undoubtedly have the right to challenge your interpretation.

If I say that: ‘Obama is the American president’ is an objective statement, you cannot say: ‘Well, that’s not what I mean by objective’. It IS an objective statement.

Yes, but if you say “that’s not an absolute statement, since you qualified it with the adjective ‘American’”, then we definitely need to talk about the validity of your interpretation of what ‘absolute’ means. That’s precisely the discussion in which we’re currently engaged.

The word means what it means. There are no options. Objective means not influenced by personal preferences or opinion. Period. And absolute means not qualified in any way, not relative to anything, not conditional on anything. Period.

No. And Vera demonstrated that this is not what ‘absolute’ means. In a philosophical sense, it means “without being dependent on anything else.” I’ll grant you that, in casual conversation, it means what you say it means. This is a philosophical discussion, not a casual discussion. If you want to hang your hat on common, “on the street” definitions, then you’re in the wrong forum.

That said, if you want to qualify your statement in some way, then we can all discuss if it is always moral or not under the conditions which you have specified. So to use a previous example: ‘It is always immoral to kill your daughter if she has been raped’.

That’s a statement about causing harm in a particular way to a particular person under specific conditions. So, one more time, it cannot by definition be an absolute statement.

Outside of a philosophical context? Maybe. In this particular, philosophical context? No. And that isn’t me attempting to be difficult or unreasonable – I’m just using the term appropriately in this context.

Now if you want to argue that that specific act of harm to a specific person at a particular time under specific conditions is wrong in itself then go for it. You can also use the word ‘absolutely’ as it is used in everyday speech (‘that’s absolutely disgusting’, ‘you are absolutely right’).

The problem is… you’re attempting to use the term as it’s used in everyday speech, as if it applied in our context here. That doesn’t hold water.

But we are not discussing the (generally incorrect) way that people use the term when chatting at the water cooler. We are discussing the philosophical validity of absolute morality.

I know. That’s why I’m using it as it applies in this context, and objecting when you attempt to use it otherwise.

 

[Mort_Alz]

It requires no mind. It needs no intelligence. Let me try this…

If you are an elephant with large tusks then you are at a greater risk of being killed for the ivory than your pachyderm pal who has smaller tusks. There is a certain degree of natural variation as regards tusk length but it’s a fair bet that your father had large tusks and he’s passed on this genetic propensity to you.

There’s a lot of poaching going on and tough luck, you get shot. As do many other elephants with large tusks. So they are removed from the gene pool. By artificial means in this case, but the principle will be the same.

So what will generally increase the chances of you surviving long enough to father lots of little elephants? Smaller tusks, obviously. And who is now over represented in the elephant population? Those elephants with smaller tusks. And what size tusks will their offspring have? Generally they will be smaller as well. So what do we see in actuality? telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3322455/Why-elephants-are-not-so-long-in-the-tusk.html

Now is there any mind at work here? Is there any intelligence? Well, we can say that this system has been put into place by God to ensure the survival of elephants. So what system has He put in place to ensure the survival of mankind? He has set things up so that those who exhibit altruistic behaviour generally have a greater chance of survival than those who don’t.

I like the elephant example. It’s a good one. Certainly, I agree that such a process is not indicative of intelligence. It’s just as dumb and deterministic as the planets going on in the way they do because of the laws of physics. No mind required, as you have said.

He has set things up so that those who exhibit altruistic behaviour generally have a greater chance of survival…

Right. And, to ensure that this altruistic behavior is actually done, he has shared with us through our instincts his judgment that, “Survival is good.” A non-rational process cannot produce that thought in my head. That thought requires consciousness; and unconscious nature cannot implant a conscious thought into a thing unless we admit that it implants it as a vessel and not the source.

 

[Mort_Alz]

You are free to do this. Catholics put great empasis on the fact that God has given us free will so you can decide yourself whether to follow your natural instincts to help others or not.

But we don’t need everyone to ‘follow the rules’ for the whole shebang to work. We just need the majority of people to do it.

Correct. But, you are refusing to address the philosophical implications of your inability to argue against such psychopathic reasoning. Of course we don’t need everyone to follow the rules for it to work. But, why should we want it to work? Because it’s helpful to our survival? Why should we prefer survival? I can see why my own survival is good. But, if enough people are being selfless enough for the system to work without my cooperation, then why should I not lie, cheat, double-cross, murder, rape, and steal if I can get away with it and not harm the system enough that it loses its capability to provide me benefits? You cannot argue with that except to say “Because that’s just wrong!” Which, interestingly, places that moral truth “out there” and we have just arrived at it.

 

[Bradski]

I like the elephant example. It’s a good one. Certainly, I agree that such a process is not indicative of intelligence. It’s just as dumb and deterministic as the planets going on in the way they do because of the laws of physics. No mind required, as you have said.

Right. And, to ensure that this altruistic behavior is actually done, he has shared with us through our instincts his judgment that, “Survival is good.” A non-rational process cannot produce that thought in my head. That thought requires consciousness; and unconscious nature cannot implant a conscious thought into a thing unless we admit that it implants it as a vessel and not the source.

Well survival is good. If there was one question to which everyone would agree, it would be: ‘would you rather be alive than dead?’.

But choosing survival over extinction doesn’t come into the decisions that we make. Sharing food with a friend is not done because we have an understanding of game theory and we are working for selfish ends to aid our survival.

If elephants had a choice as to the length of their tusks and the ones with the longest ones kept being shot, they wouldn’t consciously choose to have shorter ones. They’re not nearly smart enough to work out the correlation. But…the ones that were genetically inclined to be happy with relatively shorter tusks would survive in greater numbers and that genetic disposition would come to dominate.

In the same way, we don’t need to know, and rarely do, that sharing resources is actually beneficial to ourselves. It’s that those people who are more prone to share come to dominate and sharing becomes the done thing.