Objective Morals, Free Will, Afterlife

[Richard_Powers]

Not ture at all. It furthers our resolve and lays clear exactly why we needed to enage in hostilities with the man. You diassociate morality with the common good. All the desire for the common good or the greater good is based on some sort of moral understanding. Our moral understanding of Adolf Hitler laid the foundation for our opposition for him in the war. Your understanding is incorrect. The first step in many instances is always a moral evaluation or much more common, a physical evaluation (such as I’m hungry). Such things have importance becasue they are the first step of many and the first step that points in a specific direction. Hitler was partly opposed by our moral judgments and was made an example and tribute to our moral judgement long after he has been dead. Bombs do not drop without reason. Moral objections to Hitler were part of the reason (the other reasons are obvious).

I should have said that moral judgments alone do nothing agaisnt people like Hitler. Look at Kim Jong-il. He is pretty much universally condemned on moral grounds, but it is not really hurting him. Moral judgments only have an effect if they are followed up by action.

 

[Richard_Powers]

First, your and societies loathing of murder come from the understanding of the divine. There is no way to escape that in this country. Everything you have been taught about moral objectivity has come from religion in this country except the atheists simply deny it and scratch God from the equation.

Does human morality come from our understanding of the divine or does the human understanding of the divine come from our subjective morality. Look at the different societies or the world. They all have different understanding of the divine. There were societies in Asia that had no contact with what you call God that had morality.

Second, the vast majority of people in this country do not condem murder because it offends their subject views. They condemn murder because it violates objective reality. You and society may agree on certain reasons why murder is wrong but you arrive at the same conclussion by vastly different reasoning.

All society’s create or adapt moral systems. Most of these society’s even say that their system is objectively correct. This does not prove that morality is actually objective.

Third, the subjective sense of morality is still self defeating no matter which way you try and spin it. Soon as you say everything is relative to the subjectivity of an individual or society you are starting the end of your very perspective on morality. As of yet, I have seen no way around this. Soon as you concede that others moral understanding is up to the individual (or society) you are going to be drawn and quartered by your very own reasoning. It’s like giving the order to fire at your own execution.

See above including:

(And my position is not that rape is objectively just as right as it is wrong depending on the person. My position is that it does not even make sense to say that rape is objectively right or wrong. Morality can only be judged from a subjective position.)

 

[Richard_Powers]

I would still like to see an argument for objectively morality that does not beg the question. Saying that morality is objective because rape of a child is objectively immoral is not an argument. It is circular.

If admit that a moral judgment that sees the rape of a child as wrong requires the uses of subjective emotion then you are admitting that moral judgment is subjective. To show morality is objective you have to show that it is objectively wrong from all perspectives in the same way that water freezes at O degrees Celsius from all perspectives.

 

[Joyousguard]

Richard Powers;3151802]Have you read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright? It is about the rise of the Jihadist movement. In one part it tell the story of the Egyptian security force’s effort to disrupt the activities of al-Jihad (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) which would later merge into al-Qaeda. As a part of this effort two children were raped (although they were 11 not 6, but I do not think this is a difference that matters). They did this because they had failed at every effort to infiltrate al-Jihad. So they drugged an al-Jihad leader’s son and raped him and took pictures to blackmail him into giving them information. The Egyptian security force thought this was the best thing to do in the situation. They used rape because they knew the blackmail would definitely turn the boy (and later another boy). Now, you and I probably disagree with what they did. But are you really suggesting that they are not human? Or not rational humans? It is the cold rationality of the plan that is so sicking to me. It is a subjective emotional response on my part to their actions that tells me it is wrong. I have no objective test that I can draw on to say that they actions of Egyptians security force was wrong. But I can say it was wrong from my subjective position.

If they were not human or not rational humans, what were they?

First and foremost I would ask for a citation for such a controversial example.

This goes back to the old “ends justifies the means” debate.

You want to sit here and make the point that raping an 11 year old boy would serve the greater good because all else has failed and then call these people rational? I doubt very much that rational human beings think this way for the dangerous precedent it sets to say nothing of a myriad of other reasons why it should have been avoided. The only way they could have gotten the information out of this child was to blackmail him with rape? Or for that matter, the only way they could have gotten the information they needed was to blackmail a child? That is so unbelieveably far fetched, if it did happen, I would question the very sanity of those involved in the decision to do so. (if it is true, the Egyptian security forces have far more serious matters to concern them then terrorism and the least of which might be the fact that there department is filled with incompetent individuals)

I’ll wait till I discuss this further until I can check this example.

 

[Joyousguard]

Richard Powers;3151856]I do not support rape, murder, pedophilia because they are wrong under my subjective moral judgment. (There might be small exceptions like the one we discussed before.)

And my position is not that rape is objectively just as right as it is wrong depending on the person. My position is that it does not even make sense to say that rape is objectively right or wrong. Morality can only be judged from a subjective position.

You inevitably get one with the other, they are a pair. You can’t toss a brick off a building and then disavow yourself from the reposponsibility of the results.

Saying rape is not right or wrong objectively is the samething as saying it is subjective for there are only two choices and neutral does not apply. Its like our lives her on earth. You have two choices, you can either keep moving forawrd with your life or you can die. If you decide not to move forawrd with your life then that means you choose death for every decision we make moves us further along in life accept the decison to seek death.

Calling rape an objective moral harm makes much more sense then claiming it should be left up to the individual person.

What you are saying is that “rape can be wrong or right for you (me)”.

John: “Rape is wrong or right to me”
Dave: “So if rape is wrong or right to you I have the same choice as well?”
John: “Correct”
Dave: “Then if rape is wrong to you and rape is wrong to me than how is rape wrong or right to just you or the individual person?”
John: “Because individuals who agree make up a society and that society has the ability to determine whether rape is right or wrong for itself.”
Dave: “So if rape is wrong for one society and rape is wrong for another soceity then how is rape only right or wrong for an indivdual society? Further more if rape is wrong or right depending upon the individual, what about the person who is raped? If the person who is doing the raping thinks its fine to do so but the person who is being raped disagrees then the person who is doing the raping must concede that the rape is indeed wrong because the individual who is being raped decides as such and has the right to do so by the rapists own logic and subjective understanding.”

Soon as you claim morality is subjective you still give the order for the execution of that belief.

There are forces upon you that tell you rape is wrong and it is not just because you are a product of the system.

Just an interesting side note In WWII, 98% of all soldiers (allied I beleive but probably Axis as well) suffered from battle fatigue or shell shock (the remaining 2% were found to be psychotic to begin with, which is interesting because something had to be wrong with them mentally for them to handle such horrors). That is to say they could not handle sustained killing or sustained violence without some sort of breakdown. It’s almost as if the human mind and spirit could not take such things beacause they were not meant to do so and eventually they would just give out. Most soldiers have problems still with the memories they have from war. It’s like the human condition knows when things are wrong and reacts to inform us as such.end side Note

 

[Joyousguard]

Richard Powers;3151864]I should have said that moral judgments alone do nothing agaisnt people like Hitler. Look at Kim Jong-il. He is pretty much universally condemned on moral grounds, but it is not really hurting him. Moral judgments only have an effect if they are followed up by action.

And those universal condemnations have led to action. You can not disassociate moral objections and condemnations with the actions that result. The thought that moves your first step is equally as important as the step itself. Without one there can not be the other. Cause and effect. We are sometimes more hung up on the action or the visible rather than the mental impulse/moral objection/ desire that essentially forces or causes the action.

You can not have cation without decisions such as condemnations. Every condemnation has actions that result, even if they are very small they still exist and continue to build as long as the cause of that moral objection continues to exist.

 

[Joyousguard]

Richard Powers;3151922]Does human morality come from our understanding of the divine or does the human understanding of the divine come from our subjective morality.

If there is a God then it becomes obvious where our understanding comes from.

Look at the different societies or the world. They all have different understanding of the divine. There were societies in Asia that had no contact with what you call God that had morality.

I am going to assume you probably are refering to Tibet and the monks that live there or Buddhist monks in general.

What is interesting about Buddhism is that it does have many common themes with Christainity even though it predates Christainity. (does not appear that Buddhism spread to were christainity was founded around the time of Christ). It is interesting to note that Judaism also shares many of these themes yet Buddhism does not have a divine system of worship. This doe snot equate Buddhism with Christainity nor even put them on the same level but it does call into question many things. Buddhims has many of the foundations for understanding reality as it is just like Judaism is but both have not accepted them just yet. It makes you wonder if Buddhism is merely the plate and foundation for which will evolve a more true understanding. Buddhism is alot like atheism, they try to get from A to C by bypassing the divine and as a result to say their apologetics are lacking would be an understatement.

All society’s create or adapt moral systems. Most of these society’s even say that their system is objectively correct. This does not prove that morality is actually objective.

(

And my position is not that rape is objectively just as right as it is wrong depending on the person. My position is that it does not even make sense to say that rape is objectively right or wrong. Morality can only be judged from a subjective position.)

Your objections are a lot like a man swimming in the ocean laughing at another guy who has an island made of sand. It might got hot on that island sometimes but at least there is something to stand on.

 

[Richard_Powers]

First and foremost I would ask for a citation for such a controversial example.

This goes back to the old “ends justifies the means” debate.

You want to sit here and make the point that raping an 11 year old boy would serve the greater good because all else has failed and then call these people rational? I doubt very much that rational human beings think this way for the dangerous precedent it sets to say nothing of a myriad of other reasons why it should have been avoided. The only way they could have gotten the information out of this child was to blackmail him with rape? Or for that matter, the only way they could have gotten the information they needed was to blackmail a child? That is so unbelieveably far fetched, if it did happen, I would question the very sanity of those involved in the decision to do so. (if it is true, the Egyptian security forces have far more serious matters to concern them then terrorism and the least of which might be the fact that there department is filled with incompetent individuals)

I’ll wait till I discuss this further until I can check this example.

The incident is discussed in The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. You should be able to get a copy at any library or bookstore. However, here is a review of the book from the London Review of books that discusses the rape and what happened to the boys when al-Jihad later discovered the rape and blackmail.

In 1995, in Sudan, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri put two teenage boys on trial for treason, sodomy and attempted murder, in a Sharia court of his own devising. Of the two boys, one, Ahmed, was only 13. Zawahiri, the partner in terror of Osama bin Laden, had them stripped naked; he showed that they had reached puberty, and therefore counted as adults. The court found the boys guilty. Zawahiri had them shot, filmed their confessions and executions, and put video copies out to warn other potential traitors. His Sudanese hosts were so outraged that they expelled Zawahiri and his group immediately.

It does not exonerate Zawahiri that the boys really had, as Lawrence Wright explains, tried to kill him: Ahmed by telling Egyptian spies exactly when Zawahiri was going to come to treat him for malaria; the other boy, Musab, by twice trying to plant a bomb. The assassination attempts were part of the Egyptian government’s ruthless efforts to destroy Zawahiri and his organisation, al-Jihad, after al-Jihad came close to killing the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. ‘Ruthless’, in this instance, is a merited adjective. The way Egyptian intelligence recruited the boys – both were sons of senior al-Jihad members, and Musab’s father was the al-Qaida treasurer – was to drug them, anally rape them, then show them photos of the abuse and blackmail them. The boys were trapped; the photos could have led to their execution by al-Jihad as surely as their subsequent betrayal.

lrb.co.uk/v29/n03/meek01_.html

 

[Richard_Powers]

Just an interesting side note In WWII, 98% of all soldiers (allied I beleive but probably Axis as well) suffered from battle fatigue or shell shock (the remaining 2% were found to be psychotic to begin with, which is interesting because something had to be wrong with them mentally for them to handle such horrors). That is to say they could not handle sustained killing or sustained violence without some sort of breakdown. It’s almost as if the human mind and spirit could not take such things beacause they were not meant to do so and eventually they would just give out. Most soldiers have problems still with the memories they have from war. It’s like the human condition knows when things are wrong and reacts to inform us as such.end side Note

Do you have a citation for this?

And this could just as easily be explained through an evolutionary explanation.

 

[Richard_Powers]

John: “Rape is wrong or right to me”
Dave: “So if rape is wrong or right to you I have the same choice as well?”
John: “Correct”
Dave: “Then if rape is wrong to you and rape is wrong to me than how is rape wrong or right to just you or the individual person?”
John: “Because individuals who agree make up a society and that society has the ability to determine whether rape is right or wrong for itself.”
Dave: “So if rape is wrong for one society and rape is wrong for another soceity then how is rape only right or wrong for an indivdual society? Further more if rape is wrong or right depending upon the individual, what about the person who is raped? If the person who is doing the raping thinks its fine to do so but the person who is being raped disagrees then the person who is doing the raping must concede that the rape is indeed wrong because the individual who is being raped decides as such and has the right to do so by the rapists own logic and subjective understanding.”

Can you write this another way? I am not sure I am following it.

 

[Richard_Powers]

I will post this again:

I would still like to see an argument for objectively morality that does not beg the question. Saying that morality is objective because rape of a child is objectively immoral is not an argument. It is circular.

If admit that a moral judgment that sees the rape of a child as wrong requires the uses of subjective emotion then you are admitting that moral judgment is subjective. To show morality is objective you have to show that it is objectively wrong from all perspectives in the same way that water freezes at O degrees Celsius from all perspectives.

And add:

You may not like where the idea of subjective morality takes you but that does not mean that it is not true.

 

[Joyousguard]

Richard Powers;3154574]The incident is discussed in The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. You should be able to get a copy at any library or bookstore. However, here is a review of the book from the London Review of books that discusses the rape and what happened to the boys when al-Jihad later discovered the rape and blackmail.

Sounds very irrational to me. Terrorism to catch terrorsists. I’d have to actually look at the book and the incident to discuss it further and that is not something i really would wish to do. However, you are not going to convince me that these Egyptian security forces in all reason and frame of mind decided about this course of action. This is not the actions of rational individuals but the exact opposite. Abusing children and using them to carry out assasination and suicide attempts reeks of desperation and not rational thinking. Terrorism, which this tactic could be classified as, is not the work of reason but an irrational attempt to an end result.

If you would like to like to take the stance that what these Egyptian forces did was rational then I’m all ears.

 

[Joyousguard]

Do you have a citation for this?

And this could just as easily be explained through an evolutionary explanation.

Unfourtunately not off the top of my head. It was from a documentary on WWII on the History Channel. Here’s the wiki link for shell shock:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock

You can put through an evolutionary response in detail if you could.

This was just a side note of interest and not something I want to go to far into, justsomething i found fascinating.

 

[Richard_Powers]

rg/wiki/Shell_shock

You can put through an evolutionary response in detail if you could.

This was just a side note of interest and not something I want to go to far into, justsomething i found fascinating.

Without going into detials, modern warfare is not something with which we have any sort of evolutionary history and completely different from the combat that primitive societies engaged. If you look at the Waodani, there was no known instances of shell shock or anything like that despite their almost constant fighting. And when looking at them you can see the real difference between primitive and modern warfare.

 

[Richard_Powers]

Sounds very irrational to me. Terrorism to catch terrorsists. I’d have to actually look at the book and the incident to discuss it further and that is not something i really would wish to do. However, you are not going to convince me that these Egyptian security forces in all reason and frame of mind decided about this course of action. This is not the actions of rational individuals but the exact opposite. Abusing children and using them to carry out assasination and suicide attempts reeks of desperation and not rational thinking. Terrorism, which this tactic could be classified as, is not the work of reason but an irrational attempt to an end result.

If you would like to like to take the stance that what these Egyptian forces did was rational then I’m all ears.

Are you still suggesting that the Egyptian forces were not human? Or just not rational?

 

[Joyousguard]

Can you write this another way? I am not sure I am following it.

This was the best way I could eleaborate upon it and have done so several time sin my posts previous. Subjective morality is alot like throwing a wooden glider. You toss it out and it comes bakc full circle to hit you in the head. I can’t think of the name of the device off the top on my head but its one of those domino like contraptions where a ball hits one point that causes a malet to hit and move something else all the way down the line until something results in the end. Sorry, I forget the name of the concept but I think you understand what I mean. Subjective morality is a lot like this, you start the marble rolling and it hits one point after another, but ultimetely it will come set off TNT instead of setting people free. Its a self destructive argument and belief system.

My little discussion may take a bit to understand but it might become clearer as you go trough it a few more times and try and break it down. I really can’t think of anymore ways to reexpalin it at this time

 

[Richard_Powers]

John: “Rape is wrong or right to me”
Dave: “So if rape is wrong or right to you I have the same choice as well?”
John: “Correct”
Dave: “Then if rape is wrong to you and rape is wrong to me than how is rape wrong or right to just you or the individual person?”
John: “Because individuals who agree make up a society and that society has the ability to determine whether rape is right or wrong for itself.”
Dave: “So if rape is wrong for one society and rape is wrong for another soceity then how is rape only right or wrong for an indivdual society? Further more if rape is wrong or right depending upon the individual, what about the person who is raped? If the person who is doing the raping thinks its fine to do so but the person who is being raped disagrees then the person who is doing the raping must concede that the rape is indeed wrong because the individual who is being raped decides as such and has the right to do so by the rapists own logic and subjective understanding.”

Here is what I am getting out the dialogue.

John is saying that he has no opinion on rape being right or wrong to him. He could see it both ways.

Dave asks it he see rape the same way.

John agrees he can.

Dave then says something that does not make any sense to me. Is he making some sort of comparison? Is “than” supposed to be then?

John is saying that individuals that make up a society can decide for themselves what is right or wrong.

Dave asks if rape is wrong in two different societies how is rape wrong for an individual society? I am not sure what this question is supposed to mean. Dave then asked about the individual raped and if the individual being thinks being raped in the rapist must agree.

I am still sure exactly what this dialogue is supposed to mean. But I think one of the problems is expressed in the last questions. If rapist is a supporter subjective morality you suggest that he would have to agree that rape is wrong if the raped says that it is. But the problem with this is that it takes an objective view of morality and tries to impose it on the subjective view. In the objective view an actions has to be right or wrong from all perspectives. With a subjective view there is no conflict if viewpoint A and viewpoint B disagree. So there is no conflict if the rapist says that rape is fine while the rapist says that rape is wrong. The rapist can agree that rape is wrong from the rape person’s perspective without having to agree that it wrong from his perspective. Thus the rapist would have to agree that rape is wrong, but only from the raped person’s perspective (and probably a lot of other people as well) not his own.

 

[Joyousguard]

Richard Powers;3154626]I will post this again:

I would still like to see an argument for objectively morality that does not beg the question. Saying that morality is objective because rape of a child is objectively immoral is not an argument. It is circular.

I’m trying exhaust all possibilities for arguments using human powers right now. The only way we can get into a discussion of objective moral nature is to continue on into a discussion of the divine. However, this is not possible right now until subjective morality is nullified enabling us to move on.

If admit that a moral judgment that sees the rape of a child as wrong requires the uses of subjective emotion then you are admitting that moral judgment is subjective. To show morality is objective you have to show that it is objectively wrong from all perspectives in the same way that water freezes at O degrees Celsius from all perspectives.

While the rape of a child does elicit an emotional response as all injustices do to a certain extent, it is not the emotional reponse that is the focus here. It is the very fact that subjective morality can and does allow for the vindiaction and promotion of the rape of children as a good within this world. That is the focus of the point. I really do not want to look at the myriad of reasons why rape of children is wrong and suffice it to say it is a given in this world. What you are trying to validiate is that raping children can actually be a good thing in this world and should be left up to the individual to decide. You are giving your assent to people all over the world to do this. This is merely something that should give you pasue to consider but I guess not.

You may not like where the idea of subjective morality takes you but that does not mean that it is not true.

it i still self defeating.

 

[Joyousguard]

Are you still suggesting that the Egyptian forces were not human? Or just not rational?

The decision was not rational by the very fact that they decided to rape boys in order to get at terrorists. Do we really need to try and rationalize the raping of children to try and hurt terrorism???

 

[Richard_Powers]

I really do not want to look at the myriad of reasons why rape of children is wrong and suffice it to say it is a given in this world.

You do have to get into the reason or you are just begging the question. You cannot just say that raping a child is objectively and absolutely wrong by assertion. You have to provide the argument.

The decision was not rational by the very fact that they decided to rape boys in order to get at terrorists. Do we really need to try and rationalize the raping of children to try and hurt terrorism???

I would still like a clear answer as to whether you think they were human. Before you implied that no human could ever rape a child and really be human. Yes or no, do you think the Egyptians were really human?