Bertrand Russell

[GoodKingW]

Hello, Leela.

It seems to me that without an objective and eternal grounding, “better” would have no meaning except for each individual. So how can you use pragmatic imagination to create a better world when there is no way to say that one thing is better than another? Wouldn’t the use of a pragmatic imagination simply be something to push a personal view or agenda, which can be based just as much on greed as charity?

d_erford

Indeed, this is sounding more and more like a Sophism tempered with a few nods to natural law.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

Thanks for the kind words Fone Bone (from the comic?). I’m not always as charitable as I’d like to be, but I try.

Yes, my name is a reference to the Bone series! You’ve read it? Isn’t it great?

That’s a good point. I don’t really think of myself as a liberal myself. I used the terms because my concerns are not about whether theists or atheists have it right about ultimate reality, but about what I see as the negative effects of the religious right in this country and Islmaic terrorism in the world. I’m talking about philosophy but only because ideas matter in politics.

Only because ideas matter in politics? While they do indeed matter there and politics is - in spite of its limitations - a worthwhile and potentially effective endeavor, I’m surprised that you don’t acknowledge that the stakes are much, much higher than that. Islamic terrorism is only the beginning if wrong ethical theories are put into practice. See below:

But that is all I take you, me, and anyone else to be saying when they use those words.

Really? But they so often mean so much more! Sometimes we mean to express the meaning(s) found in the object(s) of our perception - not just our opinion about those objects!

Correct me if I misunderstand what you’re saying, but to whittle down someone’s statement that “Person X did something wrong” to "It is my preference that Person X ought to have acted differently" doesn’t do justice to everyday life and experience.

If I say, “oranges are delicious” and another person finds them gross and says, “No, they’re rather disgusting,” we’re not going to quarrel about that. We will disagree, but we encounter no obligation to acknowledge or dispute an orange’s deliciousness (or lack thereof) in our minds.

We do encounter such an obligation when our conscience commands us or restricts us. We really do encounter a sense of violation when certain norms are disobeyed. The person you were responding to mentions Hitler. When I say that Hitler’s final solution was morally evil, I don’t just mean that I would have preferred he had not done it - and I can’t imagine that you do either! I mean that he truly ought not have done it; that there was an objective obligation which he violated, one based on the value of the person that is independent of anyone’s preferences.

C.S. Lewis starts The Abolition of Man, the book I recommended, with a brief anecdote, one which I would like to ask you a question about, Leela.

He mentions a story about Samuel Taylor Coleridge visiting a waterfall; he sees two tourists there. One says the waterfall is pretty; the other disagrees and says it is sublime. Coleridge agrees with the latter and mentally rejects the opinion of the former with disgust.

Lewis then remarks that people sometimes regard the second tourist’s statement as being a statement merely about his own feelings (i.e. “That is sublime” = “It makes me feel humbled”) rather than a statement about the waterfall itself. That would be the position of, for example, David Hume, who reduced morality (and other value judgments) to mere sentiment, which cannot be wrong (or right).

C.S. Lewis, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the two tourists, and most thinkers and artists throughout human history disagree. They would say that when the second tourist and Coleridge called the waterfall sublime, they meant that the waterfall itself is sublime, independent of anyone’s opinions. In this view, some things objectively merit certain emotions, which we, the acting subjects, owe them. In this case, the waterfall - according to Coleridge - merits feelings of humility and reverence for its majestic nature.

My question is: who do you side with? Is language an expression merely of our own sentiments and preferences, or does it (should it) express objective truths and values? Can something like the waterfall - and that is one of truly countless examples - merit a certain value response from us? And what about morality? Is there any objective value found in the human person which demands respect or protection?

 

[atman]

What I don’t understand is why God in the Old Testament appears to do things that are morally arbitrary (like harden Pharaoh’s heart in order for the Israelites to suffer all the more) and that seem to violate the principles of God as expressed above.

I raised this very question in my high school Scripture course. My teacher’s explanation was illuminating. For one, it is wrong to ever perform an exegesis without looking first at context, particularly in cases like these, where the matter is so debated. There are several references to the Pharaoh’s hard heart in Exodus. Some refer to his hardening his own heart, some refer to the hardness as a state, and two, I think, name God as its cause. Yet these two were not the first. Taking into account St. Thomas’ declaration that God may punish sin by allowing one to sin again, it is clear, at least from a Catholic perspective, that God is not forcing Pharaoh to harden anything, He is merely allowing him to continue what he has already begun.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

Please take any discussions about God in the OT, etc. to the Sacred Scripture forum. Thank you all.