Non-theistic foundation of morality?

[Tomdstone]

What has been said, ad nauseum, is that when you have an atheistic framework, you cannot assert any SHOULDS. You cannot assert any moral obligation.

You can only say, “I don’t like rape.”

NOT: It is a moral obligation not to rape someone.

I don’t know any secular humanist who advocates raping women, or who advocated burning people alive at the stake, or who advocated chopping off people’s heads .
OTOH, we have people in ISIS who advocate chopping off your head if you disagree with their theology and disciplines. And they base their decision on what they say is a theistic morality.
We had Catholics supporting the use of torture to extract confessions during the time of the Inquisition. I don;t know of an example of a secular humanist who supports the use of torture on someone who disagrees with secular humanism.
We had Catholics supporting burning people alive at the stake, if they disagreed with them on some theological point. I don’t know any example of a secular humanist who supported burning people at the stake if they disagree with secular humanism.
Theistic morality, such as used by ISIS today leads to horrible and savage pain and suffering.
You bring up the concept of moral obligation. What is the moral obligation with regard to chopping off people’s heads or burning them at the stake if they disagree with your religion?

 

[Bradski]

What has been said, ad nauseum, is that when you have an atheistic framework, you cannot assert any SHOULDS. You cannot assert any moral obligation.

Any sense of morality includes a moral obligation. If I think that something is morally correct, then I am morally obligated to it. Morality is useless without that.

If You state that I am not obligated by my sense of morality, yet you are, then you are saying that you are a moral person and I am not.

And I certainly can assert a SHOULD. There is always a SHOULD when you reach a decision on the best course of action. You should take it.

Oh, I forgot. Only you would know the best course of action because you use ‘theistic morality’.

 

[PRmerger]

Any sense of morality includes a moral obligation. If I think that something is morally correct, then I am morally obligated to it. Morality is useless without that.

Good…Very good…

And other people are obligated to do what is moral as well.

And other people can be wrong about what they view as moral.

So we are agreed that there is objective morality.

So you cannot be a moral relativist.

Oh, I forgot. Only you would know the best course of action because you use ‘theistic morality’.

No. You can, too.

And we are getting closer and closer to your embracing a theistic morality…

So let’s chat some more, wrestle with these issues, and connect the dots…

Pretty soon you will be like atheist convert Leah Libresco, who, upon examining objective morality concluded that there was no other option for those who assert moral obligations than to embrace that there MUST be Moral Lawgiver.

But you’re not there yet—I get that.

We just need to connect some dots…

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t know any secular humanist who advocates raping women, or who advocated burning people alive at the stake, or who advocated chopping off people’s heads .
OTOH, we have people in ISIS who advocate chopping off your head if you disagree with their theology and disciplines. And they base their decision on what they say is a theistic morality.
We had Catholics supporting the use of torture to extract confessions during the time of the Inquisition. I don;t know of an example of a secular humanist who supports the use of torture on someone who disagrees with secular humanism.
We had Catholics supporting burning people alive at the stake, if they disagreed with them on some theological point. I don’t know any example of a secular humanist who supported burning people at the stake if they disagree with secular humanism.
Theistic morality, such as used by ISIS today leads to horrible and savage pain and suffering.
You bring up the concept of moral obligation. What is the moral obligation with regard to chopping off people’s heads or burning them at the stake if they disagree with your religion?

Bye, Tom.

You have not shown good faith in a willingness to discuss.

There is some oppositional defiance that’s being demonstrated in a refusal to be transparent about your religious beliefs.

And I don’t play with that type of recusance.

#giantwasteoftime

Would you mind, Tom, as a show of good faith, directing me to the posts which limn your theological beliefs?

Thanks.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So people should determine their own morality. Brilliant. I wish I’d said that.

Take all the credit you want, Brad.

It’s just that I didn’t say that. What I said was people are responsible for the morality they live by. Morality itself is determined by the exemplar of Personhood or what it means to be a person.

Certainly, we have the autonomy to choose which morality we will embrace, but whether or not that is the morality each of us ought to embrace, well… that is a whole ‘nuther story.

And we will be held accountable for the choice.

So, no, it isn’t true that we ought to feel free to “determine” whatever morality we choose.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

So you are ok with this person’s (atheistic) morality: “Then I will gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you”?

It would be nice if you did not quote my words out of context. This was the whole exchange (I will use the indent feature and not the quote one.) Your words were:Those who are atheists can only say, “It’s not my preference to rape women”.
To which I replied:Our preference is not based upon some authority, rather it is based upon our own preferences AND the concept of reciprocity…

1. we start with our own preference (subjective as it is)
2. we do not want to be raped
3. we project our preference unto others, and thus
4. we are against raping women (or anyone else). (Remember: do NOT do unto others…)

It is nothing but our preference, I admit - though it does have a rational foundation.

And then you replied:Why should someone have to submit to this paradigm?

Someone says, “I prefer to rape women and I don’t care a whit if you try to rape me. I’m bigger than you. And stronger. Just try to rape me. And I happen to be in power.”
So my reply was:Then I will gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you. When push comes to shove, the strongest bully on the block will have his own way.
I wonder if you understood that these words are not ALWAYS supposed to be taken verbatim. In our societies (which are predominantly atheistic - except a few theocracies) we do not allow vigilantism, rather we create a legal system and a police force, which will deal with those people who are psychopaths and whose preference is to rape women. They will remove the rapists from the society.

Though, of course sometimes direct force is involved. Many people had their personal preference not to allow the gas-chambers and concentration camps in the Nazi Germany… so they joined forces, and “beat the living daylight out of the Nazis”. I am not sure what do you find so abhorrent about this practice. Your exact words were: And, again, what you have described is a hellish, grotesque, profoundly brutal morality.

Were the actions of the Allied forces a “hellish, grotesque and profoundly brutal” display of "morality?

And you replied:There can only be, “I really don’t like rape”.
Kind of like, “I really don’t like okra”.
This not just incorrect, but a malicious distortion. Why don’t you quote some atheists who put rape unto the same level of behavior as choosing okra? And when you will fail to find even one, you will be welcome to retract your words, along with a suitable apology.

---

So then it was followed with my questiono you have a better one, which is NOT based upon someone’s personal preferences?
And to that you replied:Yes, I do. It’s called Christianity.
Excellent. Now we are getting somewhere. You criticized my world, because there are no “shoulds” in it. Where are the “shoulds” in yours? And if someone does not agree with your propositions, what will you do to them? In my world, we remove the rapists from society and incarcerate them (which I expressed allegorically as “beating the living daylight out of them”). What is your solution in dealing with people who do not agree with your proposed “morality” of accepting abstinence when they do not wish to procreate?

 

[Peter_Plato]

This is where I would disagree with people such as yourself and ISIS followers who, following a theistic foundation of morality, they advocate gruesome methods of killing people who disagree with them theologically. IMHO, both you and ISIS are wrong. A few centuries ago, there were Catholics burning people at the stake for disagreeing with them theologically or supposedly they were witches with imaginary Satanic powers, and now we have ISIS chopping off people’s heads if they do not observe some of the disciplines and moral principles of Islam. Both claim to rely on a theistic foundation of morality. This seems to me to show that relying on a theistic foundation of morality is seriously wrong and evil since it results in innocent people being tortured and butchered. The fact that a Catholic bishop, Bishop Pierre Cauchon, believed that Joan of Arc should be burned alive at the stake for witchcraft shows the utter and complete failure of this method of thought.

Where did I “advocate gruesome methods of killing people?”

I asked a fair question and you turned it into a ridiculous inference of what theistic morality entails according to your twisted logic.

Let me ask again…

"Tell me, Tomdstone, suppose there actually were magical bakers with devilishly evil powers that posed an immanent threat to all of society – bringing down fiery French loaves from the sky to kill people and destroy property, baking innocuous looking cupcakes that horribly disfigured and mutated anyone who ate them and served up cakes that rendered those who ate them into flesh eating zombie cannibals, AND there was no other way to stop them from using those powers than burn these evil bakers at the stake, don’t you think it MIGHT be morally permissible in that case to do so?”

So, if the above happened to be a reality, your response would be to do nothing and permit innocent people to be disfigured, mutilated, devoured and killed in fiery infernos because that would be preferable to stopping the mayhem by burning the perpetrators at the stake?

In case you need a clue, no I do not advocate on behalf of ISIS, nor do I agree that burning heretics was the correct implication of theistic morality.

What I am claiming is that people make grievous errors in judgement all of the time. People are mistaken about many things and are led by twisted logic into endorsing to bizarre moral consequences.

In our day, the murder of tens and hundreds of millions of the unborn is just such a bizarre moral outcome that gets justified by accepting errant premises and convincing ourselves that we have all the particulars correct.

Furthermore, a theistic foundation for morality does not equate to a “method of thought.”

Having a wrong foundation, but a sound method could lead to egregious moral outcomes, as could having the correct foundation but implementing an unsound method. What you fail to distinguish is between the foundation and the method. A theistic foundation only leads to seriously wrong and evil consequences where other features – misconceived notions of reality, such as “witches exist” – come into play.

Now, back to the question, what would your “foundation of morality” say about the devilishly evil bakers? Should you oppose them and stop them in the only way possible – burning at the stake – or do you allow them to inflict their mischief without resistance?

You recognize a moral dilemma when you see one, correct Tom? You either use the stake or let them kill and maim. What does your moral foundation say about which is the correct action?

My guess is that you will either:

1. recuse yourself and refuse to answer, or
2. demonstrate that your foundation for morality leads to pretty much the same response that “a theistic foundation of morality or Catholic principles” would garner: it would be permissible to stop the devilishly evil bakers.

But, I do hold out hope that you can enlighten us all with a higher moral way that is beyond the critique you have levelled at “a theistic foundation of morality and Catholic principles.”

 

[Tomdstone]

Where did I “advocate gruesome methods of killing people?”

You referenced a command of Jesus approvingly:

As to heresies, if the taking of the physical life of a person is an heinous act, then I would suppose causing the eternal death of someone is a far more grievous one. Jesus made it clear that it is better for a person to be thrown into the sea with a great millstone around his neck than to cause another to be deprived of eternal life. .

It is subjective of course, but many people would consider throwing a person into the sea with a great millstone about her neck to be gruesome. She would suffer terribly as she was drowning. with that stone about her neck and water flooding her lungs.

 

[Tomdstone]

I asked a fair question and you turned it into a ridiculous inference of what theistic morality entails according to your twisted logic.

Give us an example of where the hypothesis of your question was ever satisfied. You mention the word ridiculous, but that should apply to your question and its hypothesis.

 

[PRmerger]

So, no, it isn’t true that we ought to feel free to “determine” whatever morality we choose.

Yep. Morality is "something we uncover like archaeologists not something we build like architects”–Leah Libresco

 

[Tomdstone]

A theistic foundation only leads to seriously wrong and evil consequences where other features – misconceived notions of reality, such as “witches exist” – come into play.

If you compare the outcomes of secular humanist thought with thought based on theistic morality. what do you find? In particular, how would a Socratic philosopher compare the two with regard to:
Inquisitions with torture used to extract confessions.
Burning people alive at the stake if they disagree with your beliefs.
Chopping off people’s heads.

 

[PRmerger]

It would be nice if you did not quote my words out of context. This was the whole exchange (I will use the indent feature and not the quote one.) Your words were:Those who are atheists can only say, “It’s not my preference to rape women”.
To which I replied:Our preference is not based upon some authority, rather it is based upon our own preferences AND the concept of reciprocity…

1. we start with our own preference (subjective as it is)
2. we do not want to be raped
3. we project our preference unto others, and thus
4. we are against raping women (or anyone else). (Remember: do NOT do unto others…)

It is nothing but our preference, I admit - though it does have a rational foundation.

And then you replied:Why should someone have to submit to this paradigm?

Someone says, “I prefer to rape women and I don’t care a whit if you try to rape me. I’m bigger than you. And stronger. Just try to rape me. And I happen to be in power.”
So my reply was:Then I will gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you. When push comes to shove, the strongest bully on the block will have his own way.

Yep.

And that is a monstrous, profoundly depraved moral code.

It’s no wonder that any reasonable person wishes to distance himself from this type of thinking.

 

[PRmerger]

I wonder if you understood that these words are not ALWAYS supposed to be taken verbatim.

I’m not sure if this means you wish to retract your original statement: “Then I will gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you”?

If so, it is understandable and I will never mention it ever again as an option you proposed.

In our societies (which are predominantly atheistic

Not even close to being predominantly atheistic.

Our western society, in particular its rule of law, is Judeo-Christian in its foundation.

• except a few theocracies) we do not allow vigilantism

Thank goodness!

Although you did offer it as an option.

And it does seem to be an option when one embraces a moral framework devoid of any Moral Lawgiver.

rather we create a legal system and a police force, which will deal with those people who are psychopaths and whose preference is to rape women. They will remove the rapists from the society.

Thank goodness.

#theisticprinciplesatwork

Though, of course sometimes direct force is involved. Many people had their personal preference not to allow the gas-chambers and concentration camps in the Nazi Germany… so they joined forces, and “beat the living daylight out of the Nazis”. I am not sure what do you find so abhorrent about this practice. Your exact words were: And, again, what you have described is a hellish, grotesque, profoundly brutal morality.

Oh, I would find a group of US soldiers beating the living daylights out of a Nazi, which is exactly the parallel to your option, hellish, grotesque and profoundly brutal.

You wouldn’t?

Were the actions of the Allied forces a “hellish, grotesque and profoundly brutal” display of "morality?

To be sure–if they did what you propose–“Then I will gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you”–it calls to mind the horrific images from Abu Ghraib.

You find this moral? Beating the living daylights out of someone?

I surely do hope that there are some indignant, intellectually honest atheists reading this who will disavow themselves from your proposal.

And you replied:There can only be, “I really don’t like rape”.
Kind of like, “I really don’t like okra”.
This not just incorrect, but a malicious distortion. Why don’t you quote some atheists who put rape unto the same level of behavior as choosing okra?

That is the logical conclusion. If there’s no objective morality, then ALL MORALITY IS…is a preference. Akin to saying, (quoting Catholic Apologist Trent Horn): “I don’t like spicy food”.

And when you will fail to find even one, you will be welcome to retract your words, along with a suitable apology.

Then you will have to demand the great Christian apologists, such as Trent Horn, Mark Shea, Jimmy Akin to offer an apology, too, for I am doing nothing but repeating their arguments.

And good luck with demanding that, given that they are, well, your hosts (or frequent guests) here on the CAF.

 

[PRmerger]

IYou criticized my world, because there are no “shoulds” in it. Where are the “shoulds” in yours?

As Bradski so eloquently stated, paraphrasing, if there are moral obligations, then there are “shoulds”.

And if someone does not agree with your propositions, what will you do to them?

Why, I’m doing exactly that.

In my world, we remove the rapists from society and incarcerate them

Well, that’s because your world has been transformed by the kerygma.

(which I expressed allegorically as “beating the living daylight out of them”).

Oh. You meant it as an…allegory?

Please 'splain, a little bit more clearly, how you mean this?

There is someone who asserts, “I prefer to rape women and I don’t care a whit if you try to rape me. I’m bigger than you. And stronger. Just try to rape me. And I happen to be in power”

…and your “allegorical” option is to “gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you”…this looks like…what, “allegorically”?

Do you mean that “beating the living daylights” out of someone isn’t literal, since there’s no such thing as “living daylights”, literally?

Is that what you mean by “allegorical”?

What is your solution in dealing with people who do not agree with your proposed “morality” of accepting abstinence when they do not wish to procreate?

Already addressed above, but I will repeat: I’m doing it right now.

(And just a FYI, you should know that abstinence isn’t the only option for folks who wish to engage in sex but don’t wish to procreate).

 

[Peter_Plato]

Give us an example of where the hypothesis of your question was ever satisfied. You mention the word ridiculous, but that should apply to your question and its hypothesis.

You are deflecting.

I never said it was ever “satisfied” – meaning, I suppose, that it has never happened.

That is beside the point. Many moral dilemmas have never happened.

The question is a hypothetical one. How would your moral system respond to the evil bakers?

If such a situation arose, how would your moral system resolve the moral issue?

You might, for example, claim that evil bakers such as those would not really be human and, therefore, there would be no obligation to treat them as such.

I suppose those who burned witches likely thought witches weren’t really human either. They made a classification error which resulted in an errant moral conclusion.

In fact, it might be claimed that those who burned witches probably thought witches were very like the evil bakers, so in a sense it did happen. Oh, sure, they were mistaken, but sincerely so.

Does that make them evil, or just very, gravely wrong?

Still waiting for you to tell us what your moral system would do in the event that menacing evil bakers were wrecking havoc on society. I mean robust moral systems should be somewhat versatile and adaptable, no?

A theistic moral system is scalable across the entire universe since God is presumably the author of all that exists, ergo moral principles from a theistic foundation would apply universally.

I suppose we could take it as an admission that your moral system just doesn’t provide a clue as to what to do with anything beyond prosaic things like traffic tickets, workplace safety, social niceties, and such, involving only modern humans capable of entertaining purely current and politically correct notions of reality. Not of much help really, beyond contract law and pedestrian morality, this secular humanism of yours.

I mean even Dawkins thinks pedophilia and aborting babies for pretty much any reason is quite acceptable.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

I’m not sure if this means you wish to retract your original statement: “Then I will gather more people who agree with me, and beat the living daylight out of you”?

It is NOT. There is nothing to retract. What it STILL means is that we have our “preference” against raping others, and as such we join forces with like minded people and enforce some laws against rapes and rapists. We do not need some “lofty” principles, except our dislike against rape, and we FORCE the dissenters to conform to our “preferences”.

Not even close to being predominantly atheistic.

Our western society, in particular its rule of law, is Judeo-Christian in its foundation.

There is not ONE society which would base its constitution upon some Christian principles. The USA explicitly disavows them in the Treaty of Tripoli. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

That is the logical conclusion. If there’s no objective morality, then ALL MORALITY IS…is a preference. Akin to saying, (quoting Catholic Apologist Trent Horn): “I don’t like spicy food”.

I HOPE that “rape” is not considered to be the equivalent of spicy food in their opinion… but what do I know… maybe they do not see any difference. Just like you see no difference between rape and the preference about okra. If you consider “rape” as being the equivalent of “preferring okra”, then I have some serious problems with your rationalty.

But one thing is certain, you still did not present any arguments about the problem of having dissenters about your concept of “morality”. To wit: “why should someone accept YOUR preference of rational behavior”? And what should you do if they don’t accept it?

 

[Bradski]

It’s just that I didn’t say that. What I said was people are responsible for the morality they live by.

Certainly, we have the autonomy to choose which morality we will embrace, but whether or not that is the morality each of us ought to embrace, well… that is a whole ‘nuther story…

Gee. Another zinger. People are responsible for their choices, eh? Whodda thunk. And that presumably includes you and your all time favourite ‘theistic morality’, which always gives you the correct answer. Well, no actually. It doesn’t. Sometimes it gives different answers to different people for the same problem.

I say throw him overboard. Theistic morality dictates as much.
No, I say they all drown. Theistic morality dictates as much.

Hang on…you are each saying you are doing God’s will? ‘Yes’, they chorus. So who is right? ‘I am’, they chorus. But where then is this so called Objective Morality? How can there be such a concept when there are different answers to the same questions?

Ah, Objective Morality is God’s will. In every case, if we do God’s will we will be conforming with it.

But haven’t you argued that we cannot know all the consequences of an act? That we do not know God’s will? So what appears to us to be wrong may be the right thing to do in The Grand Scheme Of Things. And what appears to be right may not be so.

So we have an Objective Morality which comprises that which we cannot understand and we have ‘Theistic morality’ which, far from pointing us in the right direction (which we don’t know anyway), gives us completely contradictory information as to what is right depending on who claims to be using it.

And we will be held accountable for the choice.

In this world, Peter. In this world. By those with whom you live and, perhaps more importantly, by yourself.

How about you just do what you personally think is right. Tell us that God has written it in your heart if you like. Suffer the consequences for all the bad calls and take some credit for the ones you get right. Because you are going to get some of them wrong.

And that will happen because we are imperfect people with limited understanding of most aspects of the problem at hand. You can only do your best with the information that you have and your intellect and your education.

As Bradski so eloquently stated, paraphrasing, if there are moral obligations, then there are “shoulds”.

Please don’t take what I said out of context. I was referring to personal obligations to one’s own morality. If I personally think that something is right, then I personally should do it. It doesn’t mean that anyone else has to.

Morality doesn’t exist unless one has an obligation to it. If one has an obligation, then one is bound by it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It is NOT. There is nothing to retract. What it STILL means is that we have our “preference” against raping others, and as such we join forces with like minded people and enforce some laws against rapes and rapists. We do not need some “lofty” principles, except our dislike against rape, and we FORCE the dissenters to conform to our “preferences”.

So what if those who prefer to rape get a larger horde together to convince you and your people that their preferences should hold sway over yours?

Isn’t that pretty much what so many barbarian groups did through much of human history?

Nothing morally objectionable about that, according to you, since those “like-minded” peoples enforced their own brand of laws condoning raping and pillaging.

No real moral difference between those “like-minded people” and your “like-minded people” so long as enforcement of those “laws” occurred by whatever group had the upper hand? No way to distinguish the moral qualities of one group over another, except by sheer strength in numbers?

No moral system required - just raw force.

And Bradski was insisting on assessing moral views on their “reasonableness.”

You’ll give him five good “reasons,” I take it – before making a fist.

So much for civil society.

 

[Anthony_V]

Sorry to push in again, but Bradski really is right in a sense. Unless the issue is specifically moral theology, then simply invoking God isn’t going to help anything, because we don’t have access to the divine intellect any more than we have access to creatures. Natural reason does not apprehend God directly. Thus, we find out morality, if at all, through nature. Traditionally, the Catholic intellectual tradition has understood this to be natural law and virtue ethics, which is simply the full development of realizing that nature is teleological. Now, it is surely granted that such teleology is eventually grounded in the divine intellect (a la Leah Libresco), but again, we only have access to that to begin with inasmuch as we know God through creatures. We don’t appeal to the divine intellect to get answers to moral dilemmas. We appeal to morality to get answers to moral dilemmas; and only appeal to the divine intellect in these situations to get answers as to where and how morality is grounded.

Pushing the same point, it’s not merely that we know morality through natural law, but it is in fact natural law that determines morality. Teleology functions differently in reference to different natures. If God created different natures, you have different teleology, and therefore different natural law/virtue ethics. (Of course there are going to be constants no matter how much things are changed up, since we would always be dealing with rational creatures.) While “should” and “ought” are grounded *eventually *in God because teleology is grounded in God, moral obligations and permissions, but especially virtue, are grounded in natural law, and so they do not require any immediate recourse to God; for it is precisely natural law that God uses to determine morality for creatures. We might say that natural law is the moral lawgiver, even if God is the giver of natural law. An atheist could say with certainty that natural law determines contraception to be a seriously immoral act. There’s no contradiction, because there’s no proximate reference to God. Would he be inconsistent on account of teleology itself? Sure, we could grant that, but that’s another matter altogether. The point is that invoking God in rational discourse does not resolve moral dilemmas; it resolves being inconsistent about what you think is the grounding point for objective morality. But it is the objective morality itself that resolves moral dilemmas.

Of course, an atheist might not appeal to natural law at all, but if he appeals to a valid moral point demonstrated by reason, he would effectively be appealing to natural law under a different name and application. What else is there?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Please don’t take what I said out of context. I was referring to personal obligations to one’s own morality. If I personally think that something is right, then I personally should do it. It doesn’t mean that anyone else has to.

So how is moral obligation any different than making a choice?

Wasn’t it you who claimed people always do what they think is right (or true,) anyway?

So what would be the point of saying they are obliged to do what they will do anyway?

How can we even utter the words, “I should,” when it essentially means “I will?”

Sounds like a conflation of terms – a semantic fizzle, actually.

The other issue is that is seems rather peculiar that you would hold yourself accountable for something that you would hold no one else accountable for.

"Well, I should NOT kill any innocents today, but, hey, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

Logic and justice both prescribe that we treat LIKE things ALIKE. Yet, here we have essentially the same moral agents – you and someone else – but you are claiming that one of those agents (namely you) can and should be held accountable for things that no one else ought to be.

Please explain your concept of justice for me, and – just to make sure the “rational rat pack” comprehends both logic and reason – could you also provide your rendition of the law of identity?