Is the Golden Rule a Foundational Moral Principle or A Rule of Thumb?

[Peter_Plato]

If you can’t find it, what makes it “real”? It is the same problem with Aristotelian metaphysics idea of substance. It is nothing more than a concept of reality, not reality itself.

It is general relativity that tells us about gravity’s effect on light not euclidian geometry.

The problem with your view is you assume real means “material” which you then use to discount non-physical things as “non-real.”

That is the logical result of using materialism as the ground for your axiomatic principles and the premises in your argument.

It follows from eliminative materialism that “non-physical” means not real, but that is only if you accept the principles of eliminative materialism as the axiomatic principles. That is the way logic works, you see.

A reductio ad absurdum means to deduce an absurd conclusion from a premise (assumed axiom) in order to show something must be wrong with assuming the premise to be true. Even though the premise appears to be plausible, the conclusions that follow are absurd, therefore the premise is faulty even though the fault is not an obvious one.

Aristotelian metaphysics distinguish between form and matter. Both are real. Matter is tangible to the senses but form is tangible to the intellect. The fact that physical reality has form is the reason we can comprehend it. In-FORM-ation is the form that material things take that make them comprehensible. Matter, by itself, carries nothing comprehensible except when it is informed with an intelligible form.

This is the ground of Aristotelian metaphysics and the ground of all science and technology. To claim Aristotelian metaphysics is outdated is silly. His metaphysics are integral to our understanding of the way the physical world functions.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It doesn’t devalue life. Supply and demand. The less life the more it is valued. If all my neighbors are being killed I can see my “quantity” of life is in danger. I protect my assets. Reciprocity and economy of scale.

But there is nothing that distinguishes between the value you bestow on life and the value the dictator does. There is nothing to arbitrate between them. Why is your valuation to be considered above the valuation of the dictator except by appeal to a more authoritative “valuer?”

By conquest, the dictator is simply making a claim to BE the definitive source of “value” and since no other contender exists, his claims are THE claims that define what “to be valued” means, until some other value claim overrides his.

This is the problematic side of the Euthyphro Dilemma instantiated. Things are valued because he says they are. Period!

That is the problem with a non-transcendent value system. If valued depend upon the humans that determine value then the humans that determine value (in this case the dictator) do determine the value. You can’t have it both ways - which is the poison you have to swallow by accepting materialism.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

But there is nothing that distinguishes between the value you bestow on life and the value the dictator does. There is nothing to arbitrate between them. Why is your valuation to be considered above the valuation of the dictator except by appeal to a more authoritative “valuer?”

By conquest, the dictator is simply making a claim to BE the definitive source of “value” and since no other contender exists, his claims are THE claims that define what “to be valued” means, until some other value claim overrides his.

This is the problematic side of the Euthyphro Dilemma instantiated. Things are valued because he says they are. Period!

That is the problem with a non-transcendent value system. If valued depend upon the humans that determine value then the humans that determine value (in this case the dictator) do determine the value. You can’t have it both ways - which is the poison you have to swallow by accepting materialism.

He doesn’t “own” the lives. Each individual does. Just because I can run over my neighbors cat doesn’t mean I own it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

He doesn’t “own” the lives. Each individual does. Just because I can run over my neighbors cat doesn’t mean I own it.

“Owning” is largely irrelevant since “owning” describes a convention and not a reality. If the dictator, in fact, has determined the value of the lives of those around him to be meaningless, then, given the value premises of materialism, their lives are meaningless. No one exists to value in any other sense. Simple fact. “Owning” would be a simple fact, as well. He “owns” the lives of others simply because he does, in fact, “own” them.

You are trying to appeal to some other value system to complain about his right to ownership, but under materialism there is no value system except to those who exist to value. Again, a straight fact of existence.

Who are you going to complain to? Matter doesn’t care, does it? The dictator determines the currency of value and he doesn’t care about your complaint AND he knows how and has the power to render it valueless, in any case.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

“Owning” is largely irrelevant since “owning” describes a convention and not a reality. If the dictator, in fact, has determined the value of the lives of those around him to be meaningless, then, given the value premises of materialism, their lives are meaningless. No one exists to value in any other sense. Simple fact. “Owning” would be a simple fact, as well. He “owns” the lives of others simply because he does, in fact, “own” them.

You are trying to appeal to some other value system to complain about his right to ownership, but under materialism there is no value system except to those who exist to value. Again, a straight fact of existence.

Who are you going to complain to? Matter doesn’t care, does it? The dictator determines the currency of value and he doesn’t care about your complaint AND he knows how and has the power to render it valueless, in any case.

If I start killing all the cats in my neighborhood I can devalue the lives of cats?

 

[Peter_Plato]

If I start killing all the cats in my neighborhood I can devalue the lives of cats?

According to a strictly materialistic view of value, their value is not inherent but dependent upon the existence of “valuers.” If you have the dictatorial power to declare cats worthless and the executive force to do in or persuade anyone who disagrees with you to view them as worthless, effectively you have made them worthless, at least, according to the “value is in the eyes of the valuer” paradigm. No valuers no value. Simple implication from that premise.

 

[PRmerger]

If it doesn’t bear out in the physical world it’s an academic exercise.

Ok.

I don’t have a problem with “academic exercise”.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

According to a strictly materialistic view of value, their value is not inherent but dependent upon the existence of “valuers.” If you have the dictatorial power to declare cats worthless and the executive force to do in or persuade anyone who disagrees with you to view them as worthless, effectively you have made them worthless, at least, according to the “value is in the eyes of the valuer” paradigm. No valuers no value. Simple implication from that premise.

Isn’t that the role YHWH takes in regard to the Canaanites. He devalues their lives and makes the Israelites devalue the Canaanites as well?

 

[PRmerger]

Isn’t that the role YHWH takes in regard to the Canaanites. He devalues their lives and makes the Israelites devalue the Canaanites as well?

How is giving someone an immortal soul devaluing anyone?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Isn’t that the role YHWH takes in regard to the Canaanites. He devalues their lives and makes the Israelites devalue the Canaanites as well?

The tyrannical dictator has no power to do anything but kill, the 3omni God has the power to create, to transform and to bring back to life at any time, so no the instances are not the same.

The other difference has to do with the intent the dictator has regarding the lives of others and the intent God has. If God’s intent is to stop a specific evil from “infecting” the human race, then his intent is more like a surgeon sparing another being from greater evil than merely inflicting evil for its own sake or merely to impose his will.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The tyrannical dictator has no power to do anything but kill, the 3omni God has the power to create, to transform and to bring back to life at any time, so no the instances are not the same.

The other difference has to do with the intent the dictator has regarding the lives of others and the intent God has. If God’s intent is to stop a specific evil from “infecting” the human race, then his intent is more like a surgeon sparing another being from greater evil than merely inflicting evil for its own sake or merely to impose his will.

You presented the dictator as the one that has the power over the life and death of others, this is why he has the power to dictate value. No others have the same amount of power to challenge him.

This is exactly the way YHWH functions in the O.T. conquest of the Canaanites. Because he has the power of life and death, in your opinion, he isn’t culpable. Not only is he responsible for their deaths but all deaths. He’s setting the “value” of the Canaanite lives. Which is none. There isn’t any reference of these are also my creation and have value. Only they are a corrupting influence to the people that he did value. The Canaanites had no value.

You’ve given no motivation for the dictator, so there is nothing to compare YHWH’s motivation. Hitler did give similar motivation for the Holocaust, He was “saving” the people from a corrupting influence.

 

[PRmerger]

You presented the dictator as the one that has the power over the life and death of others, this is why he has the power to dictate value. No others have the same amount of power to challenge him.

This is exactly the way YHWH functions in the O.T. conquest of the Canaanites. Because he has the power of life and death, in your opinion, he isn’t culpable. Not only is he responsible for their deaths but all deaths. He’s setting the “value” of the Canaanite lives.

I don’t see how you can conclude that he sets the value of the Canaanite lives as nothing.

How do you know that God doesn’t present them with eternal bliss?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You presented the dictator as the one that has the power over the life and death of others, this is why he has the power to dictate value. No others have the same amount of power to challenge him.

This is exactly the way YHWH functions in the O.T. conquest of the Canaanites. Because he has the power of life and death, in your opinion, he isn’t culpable. Not only is he responsible for their deaths but all deaths. He’s setting the “value” of the Canaanite lives. Which is none. There isn’t any reference of these are also my creation and have value. Only they are a corrupting influence to the people that he did value. The Canaanites had no value.

You’ve given no motivation for the dictator, so there is nothing to compare YHWH’s motivation. Hitler did give similar motivation for the Holocaust, He was “saving” the people from a corrupting influence.

So no difference between God, the Creator and source of those lives, who does bestow actual value and the dictator who had no role in the creation of others and whose only role is to devalue?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

So no difference between God, the Creator and source of those lives, who does bestow actual value and the dictator who had no role in the creation of others and whose only role is to devalue?

I am working off your paradigm. Might makes right. The person (or entity) that has the most power, the power to kill, especially any dissenters, makes the rules of morality. It seems to me that YHWH fits the role in this paradigm. He may have additional attributes but the ones that define “the value maker” are the same.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I am working off your paradigm. Might makes right. The person (or entity) that has the most power, the power to kill, especially any dissenters, makes the rules of morality. It seems to me that YHWH fits the role in this paradigm. He may have additional attributes but the ones that define “the value maker” are the same.

No they aren’t because the dictator usurps the authority to decide value because the dictator is in no position to do so given God’s existence.

Recall that the situation originally assumed atheistic materialism (no God) which entails values are imposed and hence the dictator has as much a right as anyone else to bestow value because value is not bestowed by the material reality that grounds materialism.

As soon as you introduce God, you do not introduce just a more powerful dictator figure, what you do introduce is the source of value of all creation precisely because God, given classical theism, is the ground of existence and his valuing is inherent in reality.

Matter as the ground of reality does not bestow value.

God as the ground of reality does bestow inherent value as an aspect of the nature of existence itself. His existence changes the entire basis of valuing.

Your understanding of God seems to be limited to a theistic personalist view, in the sense that God is a supercapable existent rather than the ipsum esse subsistens of classical theism. You may want to read this Feser post that might help clear things up.

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/search?q=Personal+theism

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

No they aren’t because the dictator usurps the authority to decide value because the dictator is in no position to do so given God’s existence.

Recall that the situation originally assumed atheistic materialism (no God) which entails values are imposed and hence the dictator has as much a right as anyone else to bestow value because value is not bestowed by the material reality that grounds materialism.

As soon as you introduce God, you do not introduce just a more powerful dictator figure, what you do introduce is the source of value of all creation precisely because God, given classical theism, is the ground of existence and his valuing is inherent in reality.

Matter as the ground of reality does not bestow value.

God as the ground of reality does bestow inherent value as an aspect of the nature of existence itself. His existence changes the entire basis of valuing.

Your understanding of God seems to be limited to a theistic personalist view, in the sense that God is a supercapable existent rather than the ipsum esse subsistens of classical theism. You may want to read this Feser post that might help clear things up.

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/search?q=Personal+theism

I am simply working with in your paradigm. The highest power makes the rules. If there is no god a dictator. If there is a god he is a higher dictator.

If god as creator bestows value why does another form of creation does not?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

I don’t see how you can conclude that he sets the value of the Canaanite lives as nothing.

How do you know that God doesn’t present them with eternal bliss?

He damned them as evil and unredeemable and deserving of death. Their lives were worthless and needed to be ended. They were unrepentant so eternal bliss I’m pretty sure was out of the question.

 

[Peter_Plato]

He damned them as evil and unredeemable and deserving of death. Their lives were worthless and needed to be ended. They were unrepentant so eternal bliss I’m pretty sure was out of the question.

Unfortunately, all these are your presumptions that perhaps colour your perspective.

My claim was simply that God determined to remove them from the historical narrative in order that they not inordinately affect subsequential events. If a sentence of death entails being “damned as evil and unredeemable,” and condemned as worthless, then everyone who dies would be sentenced to death because they, too, are damned and found worthless. That would mean every single MORTAL human. So besides the fact that they were ordered to be killed and removed from the historical narrative, you need to show some other cause for believing everything else you claim about God finding them “worthless” which was never claimed but squirreled in by you.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Unfortunately, all these are your presumptions that perhaps colour your perspective.

My claim was simply that God determined to remove them from the historical narrative in order that they not inordinately affect subsequential events. If a sentence of death entails being “damned as evil and unredeemable,” and condemned as worthless, then everyone who dies would be sentenced to death because they, too, are damned and found worthless. That would mean every single MORTAL human. So besides the fact that they were ordered to be killed and removed from the historical narrative, you need to show some other cause for believing everything else you claim about God finding them “worthless” which was never claimed but squirreled in by you.

You are dismissive of the fact they were senticed to die. They could have been struck steril or been wiped out in a natural disaster, forced to find a new home, any number of things. You yourself said that they were so corrupting that it justified their killing.

If their killing was justified because of their idolatry and child sacrifice, it would stand that if it condemned them in this role it would condemn them in the next. We have no indication that they were repentant or even believed they were doing anything wrong in oder to repent.

 

[Bradski]

My claim was simply that God determined to remove them from the historical narrative in order that they not inordinately affect subsequential events.

Wow. Now that’s a euphemism I can appreciate.

‘No madam. It’s not a massacre at all and I strongly resent the fact that you are implying as such. We are just going* to remove your children from the historical narrative so that they not inordinately affect subsequential events’*.

More Python than Python…