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

[Roscoe_Turner]

Sure it is.

It is based upon an incoherent view of omnipotence as necessarily including absolute impotence as a “power.” Why would omnipotent Being be, in any meaningful sense, “limited” without the “power” to be absolutely impotent?

Why would the absolute power to create and sustain (which is what love means relative to God) be “limited” if God chooses (directly from his power to create and sustain) not to destroy what he has made. That he is “capable” of destroying everything he has made is clear from the fact that he created in the first place, so he can’t be “limited” in the sense of being incapable. You are insisting that if he chooses not to destroy, then he is “limited” in a meaningful way still. What possible sense does that make?

He is limited simply because he “chooses” (self-determines) not to act on a “possible” option that he fully has the power to carry out but doesn’t by choice?

It’s a bizarre notion of omnipotence because it proposes some strange mechanistic view of omnipotence as if God has less, not more, free will than human beings. That every choice he makes, he “had” to make and was, therefore, limited to it and by it.

Isn’t that your whole notion of morality? That it is obligatory. If god is omni benevolent, he has to act in a benevolent way or he’s not omni benevolent. What is that limiting factor? You call it his nature. I am saying that it is a limiting factor because he is subject to it, whether it was created by him or not. His power is checked by his own benevolence.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You can have two conflicting wants. I want ice cream, I want good health. You can’t have both so you choose not to eat the ice cream in favor of your health. You’ve put your desire for ice cream aside for the good of better health. It does not mean you’ve stop wanting ice cream. You just didn’t indulge the want. It not a contradiction. It’s simply impulse control.

And what controls or supervenes upon the impulses to order them or determine which impulse will be acted upon and which ignored? Another impulse perhaps? But, then, how is that impulse given the priority of monitoring the others when an impulse has no mechanism for self-regulation? A “superintending” mechanism must be activated to control and regulate impulses and that is the role of reason, which isn’t merely another impulse, but a separate faculty altogether. Further, another “determiner” is required to choose between impulses or to choose to follow rational goals that may have no emotive feature - that is the will. To will something is not necessarily to desire it, although these may overlap. For some individuals with no impulse control, the will may be a benign entity with no supervening power.

I will grant you that for some people, will is impotent and all “choices” - if they can be called that - are mere impulses. It might even be the case that, factually speaking, that is the way you operate. That is not to admit that human morally free agents are necessarily so moved by impulse and desire, just because you find yourself to be.

It might even be the case that some human moral agents have their impulses and desires so aligned to the good that they correspond completely to their willing the good. That would be Aristotle’s conception of a “good man” or a well-functioning human. But that does not mean the will is ineffectual but merely that impulses and desires are completely controlled by sound reason and a good will and are perfectly aligned to them.

However, the fact that it is necessary at times for will to override and control desire or impulse means that will is not reducible to desire or impulse.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Isn’t that your whole notion of morality? That it is obligatory. If god is omni benevolent, he has to act in a benevolent way or he’s not omni benevolent. What is that limiting factor? You call it his nature. I am saying that it is a limiting factor because he is subject to it, whether it was created by him or not. His power is checked by his own benevolence.

It is only “obligatory” in this sense for immoral beings, for beings who are not acting morally or have the proclivity to act otherwise. For a moral being, with a “good will” intact, the choice to be good and do good comes from the very nature of their being. But when that nature is degraded or degenerate, then good acts do not arise “naturally” because the very nature of the being has been compromised.

Humans, recall, are in a fallen state, so actions that would arise from the very nature of a morally good being become “obligatory” to fallen humans precisely because “obligatory” is what a morally good being would do naturally, but those actions appear foreign to a fallen moral being. An immoral being is not absolved from doing what is morally right and good just because they are in a less than morally good state, the obligation still remains, for them.

Morality is not “optional” even for morally good beings, it is still obligatory for them, it just doesn’t seem that way because it is what they would do naturally.

It seems that way because Aristotle is right. For truly moral human beings, their desires and impulses align perfectly to reason and good will (conscience.) So, moral no longer appears “obligatory” but it is what a reasonable person with a good will does, in fact, want.

If you recall, my suggestion for a first moral principle or “axiom” had the added feature of separating out functionally “moral” humans from those who were not. Functionally moral beings understand what having a “good” as an end means, have properly identified the end good and have ordered their desires and motives towards it. The principle was supposed to function as a “filter” to, at a basic level, determine minimal moral competency, in order to allow discussion to continue fruitfully.

Unfortunately, since supposedly “moral” agents could not even subscribe to the very basic moral principle that the lives of humans are always to take precedence over “convenience” when direct conflict between the two occurs, the discussion stalled.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

And what controls or supervenes upon the impulses to order them or determine which impulse will be acted upon and which ignored? Another impulse perhaps? But, then, how is that impulse given the priority of monitoring the others when an impulse has no mechanism for self-regulation? A “superintending” mechanism must be activated to control and regulate impulses and that is the role of reason, which isn’t merely another impulse, but a separate faculty altogether. Further, another “determiner” is required to choose between impulses or to choose to follow rational goals that may have no emotive feature - that is the will. To will something is not necessarily to desire it, although these may overlap. For some individuals with no impulse control, the will may be a benign entity with no supervening power.

I will grant you that for some people, will is impotent and all “choices” - if they can be called that - are mere impulses. It might even be the case that, factually speaking, that is the way you operate. That is not to admit that human morally free agents are necessarily so moved by impulse and desire, just because you find yourself to be.

It might even be the case that some human moral agents have their impulses and desires so aligned to the good that they correspond completely to their willing the good. That would be Aristotle’s conception of a “good man” or a well-functioning human. But that does not mean the will is ineffectual but merely that impulses and desires are completely controlled by sound reason and a good will and are perfectly aligned to them.

However, the fact that it is necessary at times for will to override and control desire or impulse means that will is not reducible to desire or impulse.

The “will to the good” is a desire to be aligned to the good. Again differentiating between two wants takes reason but you are still choosing between two “wants.”

You seem to be conflating will and reason. Can you differentiate them?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

It is only “obligatory” in this sense for immoral beings, for beings who are not acting morally or have the proclivity to act otherwise. For a moral being, with a “good will” intact, the choice to be good and do good comes from the very nature of their being. But when that nature is degraded or degenerate, then good acts do not arise “naturally” because the very nature of the being has been compromised.

Humans, recall, are in a fallen state, so actions that would arise from the very nature of a morally good being become “obligatory” to fallen humans precisely because “obligatory” is what a morally good being would do naturally, but those actions appear foreign to a fallen moral being. An immoral being is not absolved from doing what is morally right and good just because they are in a less than morally good state, the obligation still remains, for them.

It’s not a choice if they can’t act otherwise. They are limited in the actions they can take.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The “will to the good” is a desire to be aligned to the good. Again differentiating between two wants takes reason but you are still choosing between two “wants.”

You seem to be conflating will and reason. Can you differentiate them?

No, you are missing the fact that morality is inherently teleological, that the “good” can be an end, not necessarily an internal state. My desire is not “the good.” My desires could be completely off-base and inordinate. In fact, all my desires might be but the “end good” would still exist as the proper end of my desires even though none of them actually align to it. My choice is for an end good, not between two wants because no “want” for the good may even exist in me. A want may come about from reasoned considerations concerning the “good,” but to say that this exact “want” was always there as an active want, is a stretch. You are just assuming that it was present but merely accessed by reason. Clearly, all kinds of wants might exist, but a want for the proper good might not be present though it might be “sown” and cultivated by reason.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s not a choice if they can’t act otherwise. They are limited in the actions they can take.

This is where a “natural” perspective is different from a theistic one. A Christian understanding of the state you describe above is man’s inability to change himself (Can a leopard change his spots?). A “bootstrap” redemption is not possible even in the Christian view, that is where grace is invoked. With grace our choices can be extended beyond what we are naturally capable of or given our incapacities as a result of our fallen nature, so that we can rise above and, in effect, “act otherwise.”

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

No, you are missing the fact that morality is inherently teleological, that the “good” can be an end, not necessarily an internal state. My desire is not “the good.” My desires could be completely off-base and inordinate. In fact, all my desires might be but the “end good” would still exist as the proper end of my desires even though none of them actually align to it. My choice is for an end good, not between two wants because no “want” for the good may even exist in me. A want may come about from reasoned considerations concerning the “good,” but to say that this exact “want” was always there as an active want, is a stretch. You are just assuming that it was present but merely accessed by reason. Clearly, all kinds of wants might exist, but a want for the proper good might not be present though it might be “sown” and cultivated by reason.

I’m still not seeing it. If “the good” exists not as an obstaction but something we can align ourselves to and the means to aligning is reason, because we have free will, we are making a choice. We want to align or we don’t.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

This is where a “natural” perspective is different from a theistic one. A Christian understanding of the state you describe above is man’s inability to change himself (Can a leopard change his spots?). A “bootstrap” redemption is not possible even in the Christian view, that is where grace is invoked. With grace our choices can be extended beyond what we are naturally capable of or given our incapacities as a result of our fallen nature, so that we can rise above and, in effect, “act otherwise.”

I am speaking to gods nature not man’s. If god can only act benevolently he can not act outside his nature. We know things exist outside benevolence, these things are not available actions for god. He is limited to the benevolent.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I am speaking to gods nature not man’s. If god can only act benevolently he can not act outside his nature. We know things exist outside benevolence, these things are not available actions for god. He is limited to the benevolent.

If I ride a bicycle on the highway, I am incapable of going faster than 60 kph. If I have a vehicle capable of going the speed of light but I choose to travel at 200 kph, my choice does not render me incapable of going faster. With the bicycle, my choice cannot make me “go faster,” the constraint is in the vehicle; but my choice of traveling 200 kph in a vehicle capable of light speed does not render me incapable of traveling faster in that vehicle.

A vehicle capable of light speed has a higher constraint limit, so my “choices” regarding speed are along a far greater spectrum. There are still limits, however, because the vehicle is only capable of light speed. The “nature” of the vehicle imposes the limiting factor on my will to travel at any speed.

I think your error is in seeing God’s nature as a kind of “vehicle” that he is constrained to.

Suppose you didn’t need a vehicle at all, but could simply will to travel at whatever speed you wanted. I am not clear that simply willing to travel at 200 kph would “limit” you in any sense if that were a “free choice” of yours, given your capacity to travel (without need of any vehicle) at any speed you willed. Merely because you “choose” to travel at 200 kph does not impose a limit on your capacity to travel faster.

God’s omnipotence allows all possible activity, but his “choice” determines which actions he undertakes. Nothing external nor any internal shortcomings or incapacities “limit” God. Like the person who wills to travel at 200 kph but is capable of any speed at will, he has not “limited” his capacities when he “chooses” certain outcomes.

My guess is that God’s nature is less like some “determined” nature and more like absolute and unconstrained act, Actus Purus.

In a sense, you are putting far too much emphasis on his “nature” (akin to a constraining vehicle that encapsulates God) as the source of his omnipotence (speed), almost viewing his nature as a kind of “given” that guides or restricts his will. Perhaps it is just the opposite. His omnipotence lies in his unconstrained “will” which is not incapacitated nor limited by his actions.

His “will” is identical to his omnipotence, identical to omnibenevolence and identical to omniscience. It does not “arise” from these so much as is what constitutes these.

I think the Euthyphro dilemma - which is essentially your problem - is a false one. It only holds up to the point of ultimate ground and then disappears. It is as illusory as the column illusion from my prior post. It only “appears” to be problematic until it is realized that Goodness and Being are identical to God’s Will and neither arise from it nor constrain it.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

If I ride a bicycle on the highway, I am incapable of going faster than 60 kph. If I have a vehicle capable of going the speed of light but I choose to travel at 200 kph, my choice does not render me incapable of going faster. With the bicycle, my choice cannot make me “go faster,” the constraint is in the vehicle; but my choice of traveling 200 kph in a vehicle capable of light speed does not render me incapable of traveling faster in that vehicle.

A vehicle capable of light speed has a higher constraint limit, so my “choices” regarding speed are along a far greater spectrum. There are still limits, however, because the vehicle is only capable of light speed. The “nature” of the vehicle imposes the limiting factor on my will to travel at any speed.

I think your error is in seeing God’s nature as a kind of “vehicle” that he is constrained to.

Suppose you didn’t need a vehicle at all, but could simply will to travel at whatever speed you wanted. I am not clear that simply willing to travel at 200 kph would “limit” you in any sense if that were a “free choice” of yours, given your capacity to travel (without need of any vehicle) at any speed you willed. Merely because you “choose” to travel at 200 kph does not impose a limit on your capacity to travel faster.

God’s omnipotence allows all possible activity, but his “choice” determines which actions he undertakes. Nothing external nor any internal shortcomings or incapacities “limit” God. Like the person who wills to travel at 200 kph but is capable of any speed at will, he has not “limited” his capacities when he “chooses” certain outcomes.

My guess is that God’s nature is less like some “determined” nature and more like absolute and unconstrained act, Actus Purus.

In a sense, you are putting far too much emphasis on his “nature” (akin to a constraining vehicle that encapsulates God) as the source of his omnipotence (speed), almost viewing his nature as a kind of “given” that guides or restricts his will. Perhaps it is just the opposite. His omnipotence lies in his unconstrained “will” which is not incapacitated nor limited by his actions.

His “will” is identical to his omnipotence, identical to omnibenevolence and identical to omniscience. It does not “arise” from these so much as is what constitutes these.

I think the Euthyphro dilemma - which is essentially your problem - is a false one. It only holds up to the point of ultimate ground and then disappears. It is as illusory as the column illusion from my prior post. It only “appears” to be problematic until it is realized that Goodness and Being are identical to God’s Will and neither arise from it nor constrain it.

This is where I see the conflict:

If it a choice then it’s not his nature. If chooses to take on benevolence the question is, why take it on? What is he lacking?

If it’s not a choice then benevolence is his nature and it restricts his omnipotence.

If they are all one thing, he would transcend them all of them. We would not be able to discuss them. It would even transcend logic. The truth would be we don’t have an inkling about the nature of god. It’s all speculation and conjecture. We can’t know god or what he expects of us. To speak of his nature would be simply a comforting farce we tell each other to keep the dark at bay.

 

[Peter_Plato]

This is where I see the conflict:

If it a choice then it’s not his nature. If chooses to take on benevolence the question is, why take it on? What is he lacking?

If it’s not a choice then benevolence is his nature and it restricts his omnipotence.

If they are all one thing, he would transcend them all of them. We would not be able to discuss them. It would even transcend logic. The truth would be we don’t have an inkling about the nature of god. It’s all speculation and conjecture. We can’t know god or what he expects of us. To speak of his nature would be simply a comforting farce we tell each other to keep the dark at bay.

Except that he reveals himself and what he expects in history, in nature, in the Church and Tradition and in our ability to reason. All of these serve to triangulate on the truth, but each requires our assent. If we choose to think of it all or any part of it as a comforting farce or a tale to keep the dark at bay, that is a “fundamental option” the taking of which is just as much our choice as accepting it. If we are “by default” not ready or willing to accept it, then no matter what happens, we won’t.

If by default our position is that no ultimate truth exists, then there is no possible way to be convinced by the possibility of ultimate truth. On the other hand, if our default position is that ultimate truth does exist and pursue that fully, then truth at least has the possibility of being found.

Personally, I think that is exactly what makes us “culpable.” The “god” we choose is the god we end up with, which is why it is incumbent on us to find the truth and not be dissuaded from finding truth by rationalizations or excuses that truth doesn’t exist. If we DON’T seek the truth with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole being we will only believe the illusion we conceive rather than the truth that is. I fully suspect God knows when our seeking is real and complete and knows when our seeking is only to convince us of our own presumptions or what we find acceptable.

If our seeking for the truth is not completely sincere, we will not find truth we will only find our own presumptions.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Except that he reveals himself and what he expects in history, in nature, in the Church and Tradition and in our ability to reason. All of these serve to triangulate on the truth, but each requires our assent. If we choose to think of it all or any part of it as a comforting farce or a tale to keep the dark at bay, that is a “fundamental option” the taking of which is just as much our choice as accepting it. If we are “by default” not ready or willing to accept it, then no matter what happens, we won’t.

If by default our position is that no ultimate truth exists, then there is no possible way to be convinced by the possibility of ultimate truth. On the other hand, if our default position is that ultimate truth does exist and pursue that fully, then truth at least has the possibility of being found.

Personally, I think that is exactly what makes us “culpable.” The “god” we choose is the god we end up with, which is why it is incumbent on us to find the truth and not be dissuaded from finding truth by rationalizations or excuses that truth doesn’t exist. If we DON’T seek the truth with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole being we will only believe the illusion we conceive rather than the truth that is. I fully suspect God knows when our seeking is real and complete and knows when our seeking is only to convince us of our own presumptions or what we find acceptable.

If our seeking for the truth is not completely sincere, we will not find truth we will only find our own presumptions.

You are fond of siting the law of non-contradiction. How do you know the unknowable?

You seem to be saying god is unknowable, but is hinted at. When we examine the hints you go back to unknowable. Which makes it meaningless. “It’s a mystery” aka “no one knows.”

“We know the ultimate truth”
“well what is it?”
“It’s a mystery”
“so you don’t know”
“no, we know it’s a mystery”

 

[Peter_Plato]

You are fond of siting the law of non-contradiction. How do you know the unknowable?

You seem to be saying god is unknowable, but is hinted at. When we examine the hints you go back to unknowable. Which makes it meaningless. “It’s a mystery” aka “no one knows.”

“We know the ultimate truth”
“well what is it?”
“It’s a mystery”
“so you don’t know”
“no, we know it’s a mystery”

I can turn that back on you.

Is the ultimate truth NOT a mystery? Do you know the truth fully, so as to say for certain that it isn’t a mystery?

By the way, I never claimed that the ultimate truth cannot be known or is ultimately mysterious. I am saying it can be known but requires that it is pursued with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole being in order to be found. Absent that investment it will remain a mystery.

You cannot know what you have no investment or interest in knowing.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

I can turn that back on you.

Is the ultimate truth NOT a mystery? Do you know the truth fully, so as to say for certain that it isn’t a mystery?

By the way, I never claimed that the ultimate truth cannot be known or is ultimately mysterious. I am saying it can be known but requires that it is pursued with our whole heart, our whole mind and our whole being in order to be found. Absent that investment it will remain a mystery.

You cannot know what you have no investment or interest in knowing.

You said that the 3omni are all the same thing. It’s an abstraction without meaning, or a way to say “it is a mystery.”

Ultimately that is the nature of God according to the catechism.

1. “The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the ‘mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God’. [Dei Filius 4: DS 3015.] To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.”

How can you know the unknowable? How can you have an ultimate base in the “unknowable” How do know when you reach the unreachable?

Are you saying Christianity is simply an elaborate koan?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You said that the 3omni are all the same thing. It’s an abstraction without meaning, or a way to say “it is a mystery.”

Ultimately that is the nature of God according to the catechism.

How can you know the unknowable? How can you have an ultimate base in the “unknowable” How do know when you reach the unreachable?

Are you saying Christianity is simply an elaborate koan?

Are you saying you CAN or OUGHT to be able to know what you have no interest or investment in knowing?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Are you saying you CAN or OUGHT to be able to know what you have no interest or investment in knowing?

No, how can you know the unknowable. If god is ultimately a mystery, something “unknowable” how can you know him?

his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone

If a mystery is the source of the ultimate morality, how do you know when you’ve arrived at it?

Sounds like if you cut away the extraneous stuff, what we arrive at is

“you are never going to figure this out, it’s a mystery… just be nice to each other”

 

[Peter_Plato]

No, how can you know the unknowable. If god is ultimately a mystery, something “unknowable” how can you know him?

If a mystery is the source of the ultimate morality, how do you know when you’ve arrived at it?

Sounds like if you cut away the extraneous stuff, what we arrive at is

“you are never going to figure this out, it’s a mystery… just be nice to each other”

Nope. More like God is a mystery in the same sense as other “persons” are mysterious and inaccessible in an objective sense. In fact, in the very same way that our own being or person is mysterious to us. We get to “know” any person as “person” only as we are allowed to know the person - to the extent that they make themselves accessible to us. Their permission is required in order to have access to them as persons. Persons are not “publicly” accessible.

Persons are NOT “public” or objective entities in the way that trees, rocks or any physical entities are. Persons can only be known as they choose to reveal themselves to us. God is not fundamentally an object, but rather “Person” - actually three. We do not expect to know “persons” as phenomena. We come to know them in fundamentally different ways than we do physical objects. Trust, NOT the scientific method, is required.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Nope. More like God is a mystery in the same sense as other “persons” are mysterious and inaccessible in an objective sense. In fact, in the very same way that our own being or person is mysterious to us. We get to “know” any person as “person” only as we are allowed to know the person - to the extent that they make themselves accessible to us. Their permission is required in order to have access to them as persons. Persons are not “publicly” accessible.

Persons are NOT “public” or objective entities in the way that trees, rocks or any physical entities are. Persons can only be known as they choose to reveal themselves to us. God is not fundamentally an object, but rather “Person” - actually three. We do not expect to know “persons” as phenomena. We come to know them in fundamentally different ways than we do physical objects. Trust, NOT the scientific method, is required.

That is clear as mud

The catechism states

his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone

It’s not something that you can know. Inaccessible. Can’t be done.

mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God

If you want to examine a revealed truth, lets examine it. You can’t then default back to it’s a mystery. It is either known, reveled by god, or it’s a mystery.

Omni benevolence and omnipotence are either two revealed qualities or they are mystery that can’t be understood. Where are you putting down?

A reveled truth that is a mystery is meaningless. All that says is “we know that we don’t know.”

“you are never going to figure this out, it’s a mystery… just be nice to each other” - Golden Rule

 

[Peter_Plato]

That is clear as mud

Dodge :tsktsk: