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Ender
Guest
What is the source of the universal moral laws? Is it simply that there are people who believe there are … therefore there are?
Ender
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Ender
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Betterave
Guest
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Betterave
Guest
Good question. So if there was no God and nobody believed in universal moral laws, then what? Well, beliefs, by definition, can be wrong. So everybody could be wrong.
On the other hand, suppose nobody believed in anything (which, of course, is absurd - people can’t exist without believing in something). In this case we could not say that there were moral laws, but only because there would be no moral beings.
But back to reality: people inevitably do have beliefs. There is no such thing as a person without beliefs. And beliefs can be true or false. Therefore moral beliefs can be true or false. (All normal thinking human beings grant that. Exceptions prove the rule.) Therefore moral beliefs/judgments are not preferences (preferences cannot be true or false).
So… in a sense the source of the universality of moral laws is the basic structure of belief as such, so in that sense believing - not particular beliefs, but the general phenomenon of human believing as such - can be regarded as the source of the universality of moral laws. These comments apply to the structure of morality, not so much to the particular content, which might vary (just as judgments about anything may vary).
You (or rather Antitheist) might reply that you don’t believe that, for instance, raping a small child is wrong. You just prefer that it not happen. Normally socialized human beings however understand that personal preferences, as such, have no normative force and they believe that a normative proscription of such acts is objectively called for, and that if any belief is justified (and of course many beliefs are justified), this is most certainly one of them. They know this because they are aware of moral reality - this is sometimes called having a conscience - and the phenomenon of conscience is an objectively ascertainable fact about human nature.
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
are you saying that the worst genocidal monsters of the last century, just gave in to temptation?
our critique, apart from G-d means nothing but our personal opinion. as individuals, we pack no moral authority around. i dont see how we can seriously expect our critique to mean anything apart from G-d. especially if we are to critique from the view of Catholic morals. an institution whose foundation is G-d.
if ones personal opinion of morals carries no force, then why should millions?
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Betterave
The subjectivist position is not that “preferences are not objectively real”; it’s that preferences are brute facts which immediately, simply qua preferences, constitute value - and the subjectivist means simply value …
Simply value, rather than law? Why the distinction between subjective value and objective law? If I say “we should do good and avoid evil,” is that merely a value, merely a brute fact, or is that a law we may say objectively conduces to the good life and the good society? Subjectivists are prone to see in ethics a relativism bereft of any laws whatever, whereas in other areas of human behavior they might acknowledge the objectivity of certain “laws,” such as Gresham’s Law, or the law of diminishing returns, or Pavlov’s law of the conditioned reflex, or any other law that is not merely a brute fact but a predictable generalization that governs wide swaths of human behavior.
The subjectivist position is not that “preferences are not objectively real”; it’s that preferences are brute facts which immediately, simply qua preferences, constitute value - and the subjectivist means simply value …
Simply value, rather than law? Why the distinction between subjective value and objective law? If I say “we should do good and avoid evil,” is that merely a value, merely a brute fact, or is that a law we may say objectively conduces to the good life and the good society? Subjectivists are prone to see in ethics a relativism bereft of any laws whatever, whereas in other areas of human behavior they might acknowledge the objectivity of certain “laws,” such as Gresham’s Law, or the law of diminishing returns, or Pavlov’s law of the conditioned reflex, or any other law that is not merely a brute fact but a predictable generalization that governs wide swaths of human behavior.
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Betterave
Guest
No. (Obviously not just!
) But I will say that’s where I suppose they started. I don’t think they were born corrupt - do you?You downplay the dignity of the individual, but each individual is a participant in institutions of public reason-giving and individuals can pack moral authority (and obviously not just by reason-giving). Jesus was an individual. So was St. Ignatius, St. Maximilian Kolbe, JPII, Ghandi, W. Wilberforce, etc. Do you want to deny that these individuals packed moral authority?
Anyway, that’s irrelevant. The subjectivist is willing to accept that the world is often a tragic place (not ‘objectively,’ of course - ‘objectively’ Auschwitz was neither good nor evil - and yes of course that’s scandalous to any person with a clue about normal conceptions of good and evil). Maybe the world would have been better, subjectively speaking, if it had never existed, and perhaps millions of people might have been better off never having existed. But humans have a survival instinct (human life is fundamentally grounded in this) and ‘morality’ is a ‘highly evolved’ element of that (which still begs the question why it’s not objective - but that’s the claim!). So maybe all that’s not true, or at least only part of the truth, but the point is that your objection carries no weight against it, against existential resignation, which, it should be noted, is felt to be a noble and honest thing. It’s based on a mistake, we believe: there is hope, and we’re quite sure of that. But it’s possible that it’s an honest mistake on their part, so we should at least honor that. And we believe that God will too, that’s the Catholic teaching on invincible ignorance (of which only He can be the judge).
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Betterave
Guest
I suspect subjectivist thinking is grounded in the following argument:
Laws, in the full sense of the word, are objective, but…
P1) If a law can be broken, then it’s not really a law. (first principle, i.e., stipulative definition)
P2) Moral laws can be broken. (empirical fact)
C) Therefore, moral laws are not real laws, i.e., they are not objective.
So what’s the problem, you ask? P1 obviously begs the question.
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Syntax
Guest
I’ve read all the (intelligible) posts in this thread and commend your efforts at dispelling the errors of moral subjectivism. It is just another secular trend a morally complacent public entertains with too much ease as a substiture for thinking critically. Nevertheless, I am inclined to clarify your above remark, even though you probably already know the following:
An “official” subjectivist (or non-cognitivist), if he really understood his own position, would agree with your statement above but simply deny the logical implication you might think it has. The die-hard subjectivist should be saying that, although the human practice of what we take to be the making of objective moral claims is certainly an indication that this practice is universal for all people, the mere universality of this phenomenon still provides no justification for thinking people engaging in these practices are actually purporting to make objective value-judgments, even if they believe they are. The linguistic/conceptual thesis of non-cognitivism (the official subjectivist position) can simply deny that “torturing babies is wrong” is a normative claim at all, and insist instead, that the claim is merely a belief report about one’s subjective mental states reductively synonymous with the claim “I feel terrible when babies are tortured”. So the person’s own belief about himself, namely, that he is actually purporting to make an objective value-judgment when claiming “torturing babies is wrong,” is actually a mistaken belief about the content of his own propositional attitude.
Not only being an anti-realist position which denies the existence of objective moral facts, subjectivism, properly understood, also denies that moral claims have any truth value at all since these claims are not even normative claims to start with. (Hume’s “natural emotivism” is one example of this.)
The weaker alternative subjectivist position would be a cognitive anti-realism which denies the existence of objective moral facts but still maintains, like cognitive realism does, that normative claims do have a truth value–the difference being cognitive anti-realisim maintaining all these claims are false.
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Syntax
Guest
I’ve read all the (intelligible) posts in this thread and commend your efforts at dispelling the errors of moral subjectivism. It is just another secular trend a morally complacent public entertains with too much ease as a substiture for thinking critically. Nevertheless, I am inclined to clarify your above remark, even though you probably already know the following:
An “official” subjectivist (or non-cognitivist), if he really understood his own position, would agree with your statement above but simply deny the logical implication you might think it has. The die-hard subjectivist should be saying that, although the human practice of what we take to be the making of objective moral claims is certainly an indication that this practice is universal for all people, the mere universality of this phenomenon still provides no justification for thinking people engaging in these practices are actually purporting to make objective value-judgments, even if they believe they are. The linguistic/conceptual thesis of non-cognitivism (the official subjectivist position) can simply deny that “torturing babies is wrong” is a normative claim at all, and insist instead, that the claim is merely a belief report about one’s subjective mental states reductively synonymous with the claim “I feel terrible when babies are tortured”. So the person’s own 2nd-order belief about himself, namely, that he is actually purporting to make an objective value-judgment when uttering his 1st-order belief that “torturing babies is wrong,” is actually a mistaken 2nd-order belief about the content of his own 1st order belief because the actual content of his 1st-order belief, unbeknownst to him, is “I feel terrible when babies are tortured.”
Not only being an anti-realist position which denies the existence of objective moral facts, subjectivism, properly understood, also denies that moral claims have any truth value at all since these claims are not even normative claims to start with. (Hume’s “natural emotivism” is one example of this.)
The weaker alternative subjectivist position would be a cognitive anti-realism which denies the existence of objective moral facts but still maintains, like cognitive realism does, that normative claims do have a truth value–the difference being cognitive anti-realisim maintaining all these claims are false.
But my own opinion is that these views are too absurd to entertain.
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Syntax
Guest
Anti-Theist really needs to start making some critical distinctions if anyone is going to have an intelligent discussion about these matters. Let me start.
First, normative judgments are not usually considered identical to value judgments. However, AntTheist thinks all normative judgments can be reduced to value-judgments, without himself offering any argument for this claim. Even more strange, AntiTheist in some places seems to think that all value judgments can themselves in turn be further reduced to claims of subjective personal preference reports about what a person likes and doesn’t like. But this would be an even further dubious reduction for which he offers no argument.
Second, all value statements are reducible to talk about what we think is *good *and bad. All normative statements, on the other hand, are reducible to talk about what is right and wrong.
Third, good and bad making properties are not the same as right and wrong making properties. The terms “good” and “bad,” “better” and “worse,” are value-laden terms not normative ones, and we predicate them to either* actions *or *states of affairs *in the world when we make value judgments about those actions or states of affairs. The normative terms “right” and “wrong,” on the other hand, apply only to human actions, not to states of affairs.
All right and wrong actions are good and bad actions respectively. But not all good and bad actions are right and wrong actions respectively. When I say “knowledge is better than ignorance” I am saying that it is better for someone to have a fuller and richer life than a unfruitful, dull, and dross one. However, I am not saying that someone has committed a morally wrong action worthy of punishment for failing to educate himself; rather, he has simply made a dumb or unskillful decision that will affect him the rest of his life.
Similarly, I might personally consider the Broncos losing the superbowl as a “bad” state of affairs because I lost money to a bet, but it would be improper to say that it was a morally wrong of them to lose the superbowl such that each of player deserves to be punished for losing.
When I say “that is a good knife” I don’t mean to imply that something about that knife is “morally right,” only that it has some good-making properties, namely, the ability to slice and dice food really well.
When I say “rape is a morally wrong action,” in addition to implying that being-raped is a bad state of affairs for the victim, more importantly, I am attributing to the rapist’s action the moral property of impermissibility, or the property no-person-should-be-committing.
First, normative judgments are not usually considered identical to value judgments. However, AntTheist thinks all normative judgments can be reduced to value-judgments, without himself offering any argument for this claim. Even more strange, AntiTheist in some places seems to think that all value judgments can themselves in turn be further reduced to claims of subjective personal preference reports about what a person likes and doesn’t like. But this would be an even further dubious reduction for which he offers no argument.
Second, all value statements are reducible to talk about what we think is *good *and bad. All normative statements, on the other hand, are reducible to talk about what is right and wrong.
Third, good and bad making properties are not the same as right and wrong making properties. The terms “good” and “bad,” “better” and “worse,” are value-laden terms not normative ones, and we predicate them to either* actions *or *states of affairs *in the world when we make value judgments about those actions or states of affairs. The normative terms “right” and “wrong,” on the other hand, apply only to human actions, not to states of affairs.
All right and wrong actions are good and bad actions respectively. But not all good and bad actions are right and wrong actions respectively. When I say “knowledge is better than ignorance” I am saying that it is better for someone to have a fuller and richer life than a unfruitful, dull, and dross one. However, I am not saying that someone has committed a morally wrong action worthy of punishment for failing to educate himself; rather, he has simply made a dumb or unskillful decision that will affect him the rest of his life.
Similarly, I might personally consider the Broncos losing the superbowl as a “bad” state of affairs because I lost money to a bet, but it would be improper to say that it was a morally wrong of them to lose the superbowl such that each of player deserves to be punished for losing.
When I say “that is a good knife” I don’t mean to imply that something about that knife is “morally right,” only that it has some good-making properties, namely, the ability to slice and dice food really well.
When I say “rape is a morally wrong action,” in addition to implying that being-raped is a bad state of affairs for the victim, more importantly, I am attributing to the rapist’s action the moral property of impermissibility, or the property no-person-should-be-committing.
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Syntax
Guest
Where’s the argument? You just assert this.
Of course value-judgments have a truth-value. Consider the statements:
“Happiness is better than suffering”
“Knowledge is worth more than ignorance.”
“Humility is a virtue.”
–all of these statements are certianly truth-valuable.
Also, the fact that none of these things are observable does not entail they don’t exist.
Morever, just because good/bad, right/wrong making properties are not empirically observable does not entail they don’t exist either. There are numerous entities not empirically observable but whose existence we infer from other various premises. The number 4 is not empirically observable, but surely it exists because it is the only entity that can possibly satisfy the operation “2-squared” to make it true. No real squares, circles, lines, points, and planes are observable either–but they exist as abstract objects just like numbers. Nor are tables, pies, or chairs directly observable either, only the sensory data of reflective light patterns, patches, and spatial relationships. We can’t empirically observe love, happiness, or joy, but surely those feelings exist. I can’t observe other people’s thoughts, but surely other people’s thoughts exist. I could list numerous abstract entities that exist but none of which can be observed like justice, capitalism, electrons, gravity, entropy, energy, beauty, goodness, truth.
Morevover, just because our awareness of the existence of an entity *arises with *the advent of human practices and thought processes does not entail that that entity arises from, and therefore ontologically *depends *on, the mind for its continued existence in the same way the existence of colors are entirely dependent on neural brain activity. The Broncos winning the superbowl originates from the actions of all the team players, but even if they all died in a plane wreck hours later, the fact of their deaths does not thereby entail that there winning the superbowl never happened. It is still a fact *the Broncos won the superbowl *exists. Similarly, when you utter the sentence “snow is white,” and I utter the sentence “snow is white,” we both utter the same sentence-type even though each token utterance is numerically distinct, so the same sentence-type is not dependent for its existence on you or me in particular. We could both die, and the sentence-type would still exist.
In addition, even though English sentences originate only from English speakers, the *propositions expressed *by those Engllish sentences do not depend on the English language nor on English speakers themselves, since a German could equally say “Schnee ist Weiss,” expressing the same proposition. Morevover, even if all the human beings in the world ceased to exist, the proposition that snow is white would still be true. So the proposition must exist independently of human linguistic utterances and human thoughts.
You are letting English colloqualisms confuse your judgments here. When I say “The pie tastes good,” I am not ascribing the property of “being-good” objectively to the pie itself. Instead, I am saying “I like the taste of pie”–and this statement CAN be true or false outside of my own mind. For instance, if you say “Syntax does not like the taste of pie” you are saying something false about what I don’t like, namely, the taste of pie.
But these kinds of examples are simply subjective reports about one’s preference and tastes not objective judgments about the pie itself. If you want differences in preference to be analogous to statements of differences objective value judgments, you have alot of work to do, because when people do make objective value judgments, this is precisely what they intend, namely, to make value-judgments about the outside world, not to make judgments about their own subjective mental states.
Ok, I can only find the following two brute claims, both of which you provide no motivation or reason for believing, and both of which are highly dubious indeed. I’ve already given enough intuitive reason for thinking (1) is false. So the burden of proof is on you to show that it is true. (2) is clearly false since many atheists can consistently believe its contrary namely, that objective moral wrongness does not entail the existence of any supernatural being.
(1) The property of badness does not exist independent of the human mind
(2) If the property of badness exists independently of the human mind, then a supernatural consciousness exists.
(3)?..
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Syntax
Guest
Where’s the argument? You just assert this.
Of course value-judgments have a truth-value. Consider the statements:
“Happiness is better than suffering”
“Knowledge is worth more than ignorance.”
“Humility is a virtue.”
–all of these statements are certianly truth-valuable.
Also, the fact that none of these things are observable does not entail they don’t exist.
Morever, just because good/bad, right/wrong making properties are not empirically observable does not entail they don’t exist either. There are numerous entities not empirically observable but whose existence we infer from other various premises. The number 4 is not empirically observable, but surely it exists because it is the only entity that can possibly satisfy the operation “2-squared” to make it true. No real squares, circles, lines, points, and planes are observable either–but they exist as abstract objects just like numbers. Nor are tables, pies, or chairs directly observable either, only the sensory data of reflective light patterns, patches, and spatial relationships. We can’t empirically observe love, happiness, or joy, but surely those feelings exist. I can’t observe other people’s thoughts, but surely other people’s thoughts exist. I could list numerous abstract entities that exist but none of which can be observed like justice, capitalism, electrons, gravity, entropy, energy, beauty, goodness, truth.
Morevover, just because our awareness of the existence of an entity *arises with *the advent of human practices and thought processes does not entail that that entity arises from, and therefore ontologically *depends *on, the mind for its continued existence in the same way the existence of colors are entirely dependent on neural brain activity. The Broncos winning the superbowl originates from the actions of all the team players, but even if they all died in a plane wreck hours later, the fact of their deaths does not thereby entail that there winning the superbowl never happened. It is still a fact that *the Broncos won the superbowl *exists. Similarly, when you utter the sentence “snow is white,” and I utter the sentence “snow is white,” we both utter the same sentence-type even though each token utterance is numerically distinct, so the same sentence-type is not dependent for its existence on you or me in particular. We could both die, and the sentence-type would still exist.
In addition, even though English sentences originate only from English speakers, the *propositions expressed *by those Engllish sentences do not depend on the English language nor on English speakers themselves, since a German could equally say “Schnee ist Weiss,” expressing the same proposition. So the proposition that snow is white exists independently of the languages and language speakers.
You are letting English colloqualisms confuse your judgments here. When I say “The pie tastes good,” I am not ascribing the property of “being-good” objectively to the pie itself. Instead, I am saying “I like the taste of pie”–and this statement CAN be true or false outside of my own mind. For instance, if you say “Syntax does not like the taste of pie” you are saying something false about what I don’t like, namely, the taste of pie.
But these kinds of examples are simply subjective reports about one’s preference and tastes not objective judgments about the pie itself. If you want differences in preference to be analogous to statements of differences in objective value judgments, you have alot of work to do, because when people do make objective value judgments, this is precisely what they intend, namely, to make value-judgments about the outside world, not to make judgments about their own subjective mental states. So you will have to provide some sort of reductive **linguistic analysis ** of peoples value-judgments showing why it is that what people think they are reporting is not, in fact, what they are reporting.
Ok, I can only find the following two brute claims, both of which you provide no motivation or reason for believing, and both of which are highly dubious indeed. I’ve already given enough intuitive reason for thinking (1) is false. So the burden of proof is on you to show that it is true. (2) is clearly false since many atheists can consistently believe its contrary namely, that objective moral wrongness does not entail the existence of any supernatural being.
(1) The property of badness does not exist independent of the human mind
(2) If the property of badness exists independently of the human mind, then a supernatural consciousness exists.
(3)?..
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Betterave
Guest
…and so we are left wondering: If the mistakenness of this 2nd-order belief is “unbeknownst” to the realist, how has it come to be “beknown” to the subjectivist observer of the realist? What is his privileged observational vantage point?
And then we can usually see without much difficulty, looking at his arguments, that it is a matter of knowledge-by-fiat on his part - which is indeed absurd to the rest of us.
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
we are all born corrupt, but they were also atheists, ultimately that was the source of their corruption. with no G-d we are not special Creations, we are just another configuration of matter, political expediency determines the value of lives then as they have no intrinsic value. it took they took more than 100 million lives last centuryNo. (Obviously not just!
i never said anything about the dignity of the individual. their participation in “reason giving institutions” doesnt have any relevance to the situation. nor does the opinion of the people you mention affect ones behavior. no matter how many subjective opinions there are, they are toothless. i loved JPG, but if i were not following G-d, his opinion wouldnt sway me to any particular way. with no G-d. my value would become “whatever pleases me” not what pleases JPG.
ive seen this argument countless times. and they are right, there are no “objective morals” built into the universe. all we have is G-ds subjective opinion, which forms a de facto “objective morality” for us to know right and wrong. pages and pages of big words covers the bare fact. subjectivism is nothing more than peoples opinions, and therefore dangerous as a moral system, the example being of course, the genocides of the last century.
now you said something earlier to the effect that proving a moral system needs some basis outside G-d for it to be taken seriously by others. why? the existence of G-d is the only real question. once thats shown, the rest falls into place. otherwise they are right.
it doesnt matter if morality evolved (yes, i think its silly too), its still subjective, and still an opinion. that doesnt move the ball at all. further, ethics arent an average of how people feel, it deals with individuals actions, and i have yet to see any subjectivist argument that says, i cant do as i please, as long as i can avoid the consequences.
and i wouldnt fall for the “noble and honest” routine, i used that when i was an atheist too. you will see how fast it dissapears when you corner someone. funny how rationalism dissapears faster than snow on a summers day when it doesnt agree with the position one desires to hold.
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Ender
Guest
I’m getting behind here and having difficulty understanding what is being said.
Ender
OK, this seems reasonable and doesn’t appear to fundamentally change anything about the discussion so I’ll accept it and move on.
I think you’ve overstepped on this one; I don’t see how the conclusion logically follows from the conditions. Also, I think you’ve changed the terms sufficiently that we are talking about different things. We haven’t been debating whether moral laws are universal (among mankind) but whether they objectively exist or are you contending that these words mean the same thing?
But if the content may vary (and we know if fact that it varies greatly) then how can it be that morality exists objectively? Doesn’t objective truth mean that it is true for everyone? Surely it wouldn’t be dependent on whether or not someone believed in it.
There are plenty of examples of (mis)behavior, however, that challenge this position, such as torture for entertainment (Sioux), carving a persons beating heart of his chest (Aztecs), eating your enemies or slaughtering them to the last man, woman, and child. These were all normative for their time and place so on what basis can those practices be seen as any less normative (or valid) that our current belief that those things are wrong?
Based on the different practices I just mentioned it would seem that the objectively ascertainable fact of the conscience isn’t quite as obvious as you claim. Nor is it obvious, even if we could prove the existence of a conscience, that it would mean that an objective morality existed; it could mean nothing more than that everyone has some code of ethics (however formed). It isn’t clear how the existence of a conscience requires the existence of objective morality.
Ender
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AntiTheist
Guest
Well, Syntax, it’s nice to see someone actually trying to offer an argument. I appreciate that – and I appreciate the fact that your post is actually coherent and comprehensible – even if it is really just more of the same.
I’m only going to address one of your points in this post because if we can’t agree on that point, then further conversation is pointless.
You might say “Most people find happiness more desirable than suffering.” That’s a statement with a truth value. We could investigate that by taking a poll. Or you could say that “Being consistently happy tends to improve a person’s health.” We could study that, also.
But “Happiness is better than suffering” is a value judgment that, in and of itself, can’t be said to be true or false unless you give the statement a context, a value system against which to measure the terms.
There certainly have been those – Nietzsche, for one – who have argued that suffering is valuable and of greater value than happiness. This is part of Nietzsche’s argument against utilitarianism – there are things greater than simply being happy. Indeed, he argues that while others might wish for an end to suffering, he wishes suffering to be increased because it is through suffering that one demonstrates strength and grows in strength.
Now, you might respond that you’re defining “happiness” in a eudaimonia sense and that the “happiness” that you’re talking about includes suffering for the sake of some kind of “greater good.” Well, whoop-dee-doo. You’re now no longer talking about happiness, but a special term that you have defined as better than suffering within the context of a philosophical system that gives the terms relative value. That doesn’t help us here.
Just plain ol’ unqualified happiness can’t be said to be “better” than suffering any more than plants can be “better” than the fourth of July. If we don’t have a context, then “better” is a meaningless word.
I’m only going to address one of your points in this post because if we can’t agree on that point, then further conversation is pointless.
Those aren’t truth statements. Let’s take the first one. “Happiness is better than suffering.” Really? How would you go about demonstrating this? What, exactly, does “better” mean?
You might say “Most people find happiness more desirable than suffering.” That’s a statement with a truth value. We could investigate that by taking a poll. Or you could say that “Being consistently happy tends to improve a person’s health.” We could study that, also.
But “Happiness is better than suffering” is a value judgment that, in and of itself, can’t be said to be true or false unless you give the statement a context, a value system against which to measure the terms.
There certainly have been those – Nietzsche, for one – who have argued that suffering is valuable and of greater value than happiness. This is part of Nietzsche’s argument against utilitarianism – there are things greater than simply being happy. Indeed, he argues that while others might wish for an end to suffering, he wishes suffering to be increased because it is through suffering that one demonstrates strength and grows in strength.
Now, you might respond that you’re defining “happiness” in a eudaimonia sense and that the “happiness” that you’re talking about includes suffering for the sake of some kind of “greater good.” Well, whoop-dee-doo. You’re now no longer talking about happiness, but a special term that you have defined as better than suffering within the context of a philosophical system that gives the terms relative value. That doesn’t help us here.
Just plain ol’ unqualified happiness can’t be said to be “better” than suffering any more than plants can be “better” than the fourth of July. If we don’t have a context, then “better” is a meaningless word.
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Ender
Guest
Bear with me here. I am not a subjectivist. I am trying to understand the logic behind the claim that, without God, morality nonetheless objectively exists. That is, what is it about AntiTheist’s position that is wrong. It may well be wrong but I as yet don’t see where his position fails.
What is wrong with that position? You state that disbelieving the existence of objective moral facts is an anti-realist position but that assumes the whole basis for this debate has been settled in your favor. Explain how you know there are objective moral facts and that moral claims have truth values.
Ender
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Ender
Guest
Agreed, but just because some things that cannot be observed nonetheless exist says nothing about whether objective morality is among that group.
If I make a value judgment I can accept that I am stating what I believe to be objectively true but what makes it objectively true? Surely it cannot be true simply because I believe it, and what of the situation where people’s value judgments are complete opposites? Both believe the exact same thing regarding “value-judgments about the outside world” but, as both of them cannot be objectively true, why should we believe that either of them is?
I don’t think you’ve made your case; I don’t find your arguments nearly as compelling as you think they are.
The fact that many atheists disbelieve this claim says nothing whatever about whether it is true or false.
Ender
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Leela
Guest
Hi Ender,
Why not allow for the possibility that at least some assertions of value may have truth value? If you say that they can never have truth value because their truth cannot be empirically verified, you are taking an anti-realist position because you are putting limits on what can be regarded as real as only that which can be verified. In other words, you are declaring everything that cannot be verified as unreal.
Best,
Leela
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
ive been following the conversation, if there is a post that is inchomprehensible, or incoherent. let me know what post or concept youre not getting a grip on, and i’ll see if i can help.
- Status