Rights are not self-evident

[Prodigal_Son]

Well, if God is goodness, then saying that God causes goodness is trivial. Most of the time, when we speak of moral agents, we are referring to entities that are subjected to an ethical standard of some sort, not ethical standards in themselves. You see, in order for you to say, “God is good,” you would have to apply the ethical standard (God) to God. In effect, you’re using the principle of goodness to determine its own goodness. That’s like using a mathematical property to prove itself. You might as well say “God’s goodness is axiomatic.” If you can admit that, then that’s great. We can both admit that our ethical systems rely on axioms and that we can’t simply use reason alone to reach ethical conclusions.

Interesting point (which of course, we have discussed before). If you are purely a consequentialist, it’s irrelevant: you ought to do whatever leads to the best consequences. If God exists (whether His goodness is axiomatic or not), those “best consequences” are that human beings might freely live in accordance with their God-given nature, which will lead to their *eternal *happiness. In this case, God need simply act so as to make humans happy, and He will be perfectly good.

If you are not purely a consequentialist – that is, if you think that anything else can define goodness except consequences – then please make that declaration, and we will discuss the Euthyphro Dilemma on its own terms.

This is exactly the kind of ambiguity I was talking about. How do we determine “welfare?” Or, if you prefer, how do you think Kant would determine what state counts as ‘well-being’ and which states do not? Again, this seems subjective to the core…

I grow weary of defending Kant. I just Kant take anymore.

And here I thought arrogance was considered the negation (or, in some frameworks, the opposite) of humility.

A common error. Humility is a virtue; the negation of it is not a vice, but rather a lack of virtue. Arrogance is the presence of a certain unflattering attitude: it is, theoretically at least, possible to be both arrogant and humble. But it is certainly possible to possess arrogance and also lack humility.

But I don’t believe that God is good. That is, I don’t believe the character expressed by your theology would satisfy my conception of a “good person.”

In a similar way, I do not know if Kofi Annan is good. I have heard a great deal about him, some good, some quite bad. But I have never met the man, and thus I can hardly form an accurate opinion about him. Perhaps if I met him, I would find that Kofi Annan struck me as a good person; perhaps not.

This much is clear: you can never know that anyone is good, unless you first know that person. Once you meet Jesus, you will have better evidence with which to judge.

I already do (and have).

Good. If the Bible is any indication, God prefers those who struggle with Him.

And I disagree. We don’t posit the existence of any other objects as axiomatic. That honor is reserved for our senses (we assume that our senses are relaying accurate information of the contents of the external world). If you trust your senses, the objects follow, no axioms required (other than the trust in senses).

Huh? But that *was *an axiom required. Why should we choose the axiom 1) My senses are reliable, and reject the axiom 2) My intuitions are reliable? Some cultures have rejected #1, and accepted #2. Very few cultures have rejected #2. Am I insane to propose that we accept both #1 and #2?

By the way, we do posit the existence of other “objects” as axiomatic. They are called the laws of nature, and they are not apprehended by our senses.

My bad. I thought you said, “Sally is justified in believing her husband will arrive at work.” Still, this statement is not prescriptive. It doesn’t suggest what should be done, and we could determine its truth value (eventually). It’s still an assertion of what is done, not what should be done.

Yes, it is prescriptive. It says, “Anyone, put in the position of Sally in relation to her evidence, **ought **to – insofar as he is epistemically responsible – believe the same thing Sally believes.” This is a simple analysis of the term “justified”.

Of course. Most people don’t feel that theft is wrong until they become familiar with the idea by being subjected to it, i. e., by having a possession of theirs stolen. Similarly, most people don’t think much of life until a relative or someone they are close to passes away (which usually occurs at an early age). Notice, however, that this information would not form an ethic without the emotional response. “My mother has died” is not to say, “My mother should not have died.” The emotions must be present.

I agree. The *subjective *experience of ethics relies on emotions – either from actual or imagined experiences. Likewise, my subjective experience of an apple has nothing in common with the apple itself – and yet, the apple’s existence is the cause of my subjective experience. Likewise with morals.

And now a twisted experiment comes to mind: If we were to take a baby and destroy the parts of his brain that are responsible for emotion, personality, etc.*, would we see him grow up to have any moral sense at all? He might learn not to do certain things to get his way, but would he really conceive of “wrongness?” If he just had the information, and not the emotion, I doubt there would be any such idea.

Yes, but of course, if I destroy the parts of the brain that connect to perception, the person so affected would fail to perceive an apple. This is, once again, not an argument for the apple’s nonexistence.

 

[Oreoracle]

Interesting point (which of course, we have discussed before). If you are purely a consequentialist, it’s irrelevant: you ought to do whatever leads to the best consequences. If God exists (whether His goodness is axiomatic or not), those “best consequences” are that human beings might freely live in accordance with their God-given nature, which will lead to their *eternal *happiness. In this case, God need simply act so as to make humans happy, and He will be perfectly good.

Obviously, I have three major objections here:

1. The ethical standard of utility is not objective.
2. Not only has God failed to maximize the production of happiness, but he has also produced suffering, so even if we accept the utility standard as objective, he wouldn’t be perfectly good.
3. Being perfectly good isn’t the same as being goodness.

If you are not purely a consequentialist – that is, if you think that anything else can define goodness except consequences – then please make that declaration, and we will discuss the Euthyphro Dilemma on its own terms.

Nope, I’m very much a consequentialist.

I grow weary of defending Kant. I just Kant take anymore.

Haha.

Arrogance is the presence of a certain unflattering attitude: it is, theoretically at least, possible to be both arrogant and humble. But it is certainly possible to possess arrogance and also lack humility.

I think this seems possible to you and not to me because I take your idea of “arrogance” a step farther. If we address why being arrogant is so unflattering, we’ll see that it’s not very cooperative with humility. But then, we all have different definitions of emotional states.

Actually, scratch that; there may be a way for them to coexist. If we take a powerful, competent person who lives in a population of general incompetence, then that person may be duly proud without exaggerating his conception of himself. This is a stretch, however, because a quick check on the internet shows “humble” defined as “not arrogant.” But I’m well aware that you’re not using dictionary definitions.

This much is clear: you can never know that anyone is good, unless you first know that person. Once you meet Jesus, you will have better evidence with which to judge.

That’s just the problem, isn’t it? Christians don’t want you to have that chance to meet him. To them, you accept him now or be damned for your failure to form an opinion of someone you know little of.

Huh? But that *was *an axiom required. Why should we choose the axiom 1) My senses are reliable, and reject the axiom 2) My intuitions are reliable?

Our senses allow us all to see the same world in the same way. But everyone paints a different picture of reality when they use their intuitions (just look at various religions and metaphysical speculations). This is a good sign that sensing is superior to intuiting as far as consistency and reliability go.

By the way, we do posit the existence of other “objects” as axiomatic. They are called the laws of nature, and they are not apprehended by our senses.

I’m not sure if that’s the case for every law of nature. Laws are statements meant to describe how objects and/or energies will consistently react with one another. From what I’ve been taught, we’re not so sure that inertia and gravity are “objects.” They’re mechanisms we use in our descriptions of the relationships and tendencies of objects. They’re kind of like variables in algebraic equations. I suppose you can say we “know” that, on a superficial level, variables represent numbers, but we have no idea what those numbers are until we work the problem. Currently, it doesn’t seem like we can work such problems.

Yes, it is prescriptive. It says, “Anyone, put in the position of Sally in relation to her evidence, **ought **to – insofar as he is epistemically responsible – believe the same thing Sally believes.” This is a simple analysis of the term “justified”.

This depends on which “should/ought” we’re talking about. If you just bought a toaster and it doesn’t work, wouldn’t you say, “Any toaster put in this position should function?” I think we can agree that this usage of “should” is a far cry from the ethical usage. Here, you’re more or less talking about efficiency/ability and using “should” as Aristotle did.

I agree. The *subjective *experience of ethics relies on emotions – either from actual or imagined experiences. Likewise, my subjective experience of an apple has nothing in common with the apple itself – and yet, the apple’s existence is the cause of my subjective experience. Likewise with morals.

Your analogy isn’t perfect: you don’t require emotions to experience the apple. You do, however, with morals. I think this is a bit suspicious, don’t you? We don’t sense morals, but we feel them, and only when emotions are present.

Let’s use a different approach: If you see a beautiful painting, do you think “that painting has the objective quality of beauty” or “that painting pleases me in such a way that I feel it’s beautiful?” Is the beauty produced as a feeling in your mind, or does it exist in the painting regardless of your perception?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

But since everyone has a different conception of this ideal world, we have good reason to doubt the reliability of this intuition.

First of all, this “ideal world” business is your creation, not mine. I am simply saying that we have intuitions about what types of things are good, and what types of things are bad. I do not deny that these intuitions could have evolved through natural selection – but, if they did, this does not show us that they are subjective. Rather, it suggests the opposite. The fact that humans have sensory receptors which can perceive motion at a distance is better explained by the hypothesis that objects are actually moving than by the hypothesis that humans are imagining such a thing. The same is true about our “perceptions” about right and wrong.

You say people tend to disagree about moral truths, but you haven’t given me examples. There is a very widespread cross-cultural belief in something like the Golden Rule, and societies universally declare things like murder and adultery to be wrong. They may define these actions in subtly different ways, but the core belief is the same.

How do we tell if your intuitive capacity is functioning properly? We can tell if someone’s color-blind, because most of us see the same colors (and we have sciences dedicated to the topic). How do we tell if someone’s “moral-blind,” if you will? Couldn’t they claim that you’re blind to their morals?

Psychologists have a category “sociopath” for one variety of this concept. Also, various personality disorders clearly dissociate sufferers from moral realities. Certainly, a sociopath could claim that we are the ones who are wrong about the world, but this claim is hardly creditable.

Because these intuitions of yours lack the ability to be tested, it’s absurd to compare them to propositions that can be subjected to testing.

Alright, Einstein. Devise a test that will **prove **the existence of an external world. :coffeeread:

There are differences: I don’t declare my mom to be infallible, nor do I give her a god-like role in my life. I take her to be exactly what she is. If she requests that I do something absurd, I’ll object.

If you take God to be exactly what He is, then you know that He will never be in error.

It’s good that you recognize that serving God is your choice, and not the default position of all humans. I guess we just have different tastes in leaders, then. Personally, I wouldn’t put someone on such a pedestal that I would consider their authority above my own reasoning. After all, was it not my reasoning that elected them to lead me in the first place?

There’s a difference between choosing and electing.

Would you share these reasons?

To put it briefly, I have a relationship with God. There are a thousand ways that this relationship manifests itself in my life. In much the same way that I learn, day by day, that my wife is a wiser and more loving person than I expect, I learn, day by day, by experience, that God’s way is better than my way. When I stray, I find myself utterly unsatisfied with life.

Many agnostic posters on this forum would respond: But aren’t these feelings perfectly natural? Aren’t they caused by the social judgments that religion places on you, and how these affect your psychology? Could be. But to say that they *are *-- to say that a “relationship with God” is impossible – is speculation.

I would compare the above dismissive response to the following: an atheistic poster complains about how he has seen too much evil in his life to believe in a good God. A Christian responds that these events weren’t really evil, because God let them happen, so they must lead to good. This Christian response is perfectly absurd (and unfriendly), because it summarily invalidates the atheist’s experience. Likewise with the atheistic response that my relationship with God could be imaginary.

It’s contradictory to consider God above your reasoning whenever that same reasoning led you to follow God in the first place! Either your opinion is miserably fallible, or it is not. And if you think it is, then you must concede that that opinion is also miserably fallible, and so on. See, without trusting your ability to reason, you can’t even determine that you’re unreasonable! Even obedient sheep have to trust their own judgments (what few they have, anyway).

False dichotomy. Human reason is fallible, but not “miserably fallible”. At any rate, *reasoning *did not bring me to follow God in the first place. Unless you would say that “reasoning” is what would make a single man ask for a beautiful young lady’s phone number. I have fallen in love with God, Oreo. Is falling in love a *reasonable *thing to do?

You’re comparing apples and oranges. In this case, excellence can be measured.

A sufficiently refined system of epicycles could account for our measurements just as well as the neo-Copernican system. Does that make it the best explanation? But the fact that we cannot agree on what is “best” does not preclude their *being *a best, objectively.

Hmm…I suspect that you’re narrowing the meaning of “pleasure” here. Does the satisfaction of, say, going to Church ever get old?

Of course! It’s gets old, and then new again, and then old again. Quite frankly, I very rarely feel “satisfied” that I have gone to church. It’s a habit, and I don’t think about it much.

Does the satisfaction caused by being proud of one’s children decline over time?

Yes. It ebbs and flows. Any parent that says differently is almost certainly lying.

 

[Oreoracle]

First of all, this “ideal world” business is your creation, not mine. I am simply saying that we have intuitions about what types of things are good, and what types of things are bad.

But you contend that ethics are descriptive. If they don’t describe anything in the world, then what the heck do they describe?

I do not deny that these intuitions could have evolved through natural selection – but, if they did, this does not show us that they are subjective. Rather, it suggests the opposite.

Not really. We’re back to the naturalistic fallacy: Killing an innocent isn’t objectively wrong just because it’s natural to feel that way. “I feel…” can never qualify as “It is…” no matter what mechanism, entity, etc., causes these feelings.

I notice that you never answered my last question: If you feel that a painting is beautiful, do you assume that the painting has the objective quality of beauty? Or do you think that it merely satisfies you and the “beauty” is produced in your mind?

The fact that humans have sensory receptors which can perceive motion at a distance is better explained by the hypothesis that objects are actually moving than by the hypothesis that humans are imagining such a thing. The same is true about our “perceptions” about right and wrong.

Would you say the same of beauty and ugliness? You’re giving feelings far too much ground by qualifying them as perceptions. Beauty and ugliness don’t really exist as objective properties, they’re just abstractions caused by feelings. Why should I think of ethics differently?

You say people tend to disagree about moral truths, but you haven’t given me examples. There is a very widespread cross-cultural belief in something like the Golden Rule, and societies universally declare things like murder and adultery to be wrong. They may define these actions in subtly different ways, but the core belief is the same.

One ethical topic where we see wild variance is on the issue of killing sentient beings for food or otherwise. Every society seems to have differing opinions on what is or isn’t acceptable to eat (some Chinese, for example, eat dogs, something most Americans would protest), and some people think we should refrain from eating animals altogether. Marriage also has little universal solidity; some folks want monogamy, others polygamy, and some don’t care for marriage at all. And needless to say, different societies have drastically different opinions about warfare.

If you take God to be exactly what He is, then you know that He will never be in error.

How do I know what God is? By trusting you and your Church?

If he wants me to know him, he knows where I live. My door is open.

There’s a difference between choosing and electing.

Eh? How so? Are you saying that election isn’t a matter of choice?

False dichotomy. Human reason is fallible, but not “miserably fallible”.

Right, but Christians in general want to make our understandings appear small and largely unreliable (except those pertaining to God, of course). They’ve taken it past recognizing mere fallibility; they seem to be embracing helplessness.

Yes. It ebbs and flows. Any parent that says differently is almost certainly lying.

I’m glad you were honest and didn’t try to give me a corny answer.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

After a long pause, maybe let’s start this up again…

Obviously, I have three major objections here:

1. The ethical standard of utility is not objective.

Agreed. Some people see this as a criticism.

1. Not only has God failed to maximize the production of happiness, but he has also produced suffering…

False, but irrelevant. If God exists, then the best consequence is for everyone to get to heaven. The utilitarian, as you pointed out above, is only concerned with his own actions; he cannot go around blaming other people (or God) for not conforming to his own standards of utility. Perhaps they have *different *standards of utility – and it seems logical enough that a being who knows everything would have a different perspective than one who doesn’t.

1. Being perfectly good isn’t the same as being goodness.

I’m not sure how this is relevant. In my opinion, “goodness” is simply a concept that we derive from the observation that something can be “good”. Having the property of goodness = being good.

I think this seems possible to you and not to me because I take your idea of “arrogance” a step farther. If we address why being arrogant is so unflattering, we’ll see that it’s not very cooperative with humility. But then, we all have different definitions of emotional states.

Actually, scratch that; there may be a way for them to coexist. If we take a powerful, competent person who lives in a population of general incompetence, then that person may be duly proud without exaggerating his conception of himself. This is a stretch, however, because a quick check on the internet shows “humble” defined as “not arrogant.” But I’m well aware that you’re not using dictionary definitions.

The dictionary considers “humble” an attitude, akin to, say, meekness. I would consider humble a virtue, corresponding to “an accurate estimation of yourself.” A pro golfer who thinks he’s not very good is not humble; he’s wrong about himself. I tend to agree with your example, although I would still think it an unflattering characteristic for that competent person to act arrogantly – that is, to act like he’s the center of the world. But you can act like you’re the center of the world without believing you’re the center of the world; that’s the distinction I’m trying to make. An arrogant humble person would constantly realize how unworthy he was of his own esteem, and seek to correct it. Thus, I don’t think he would be arrogant for long.

That’s just the problem, isn’t it? Christians don’t want you to have that chance to meet him. To them, you accept him now or be damned for your failure to form an opinion of someone you know little of.

You don’t need to accept Him now. That would be a profoundly unreasonable thing to do. The Greek word for faith, pistis, also means conviction. Those who know God – and not all Christians do – become *convinced *of Him. If you keep your eyes and your heart open, and don’t pretend like you know everything there is to know, He’ll find you.

Of course, there are many people (including Christians) who remain willfully ignorant. They are the ones who should be worried.

Our senses allow us all to see the same world in the same way.

We see the same world, but we have different experiences of it. One person thinks that vanilla ice cream tastes great, another thinks it’s awful. Likewise, one person thinks that Zen meditation is the way to God, another thinks the worship of the mass is the way.

I’m not sure if that’s the case for every law of nature. Laws are statements meant to describe how objects and/or energies will consistently react with one another. From what I’ve been taught, we’re not so sure that inertia and gravity are “objects.” They’re mechanisms we use in our descriptions of the relationships and tendencies of objects.

Well, I’m certainly not insisting that objectivity implies an object. That’s why I put “objects” in quotation marks. The law of inertia (or the law underlying it) is not an object, but it is real. That’s my point.

This depends on which “should/ought” we’re talking about. If you just bought a toaster and it doesn’t work, wouldn’t you say, “Any toaster put in this position should function?” I think we can agree that this usage of “should” is a far cry from the ethical usage. Here, you’re more or less talking about efficiency/ability and using “should” as Aristotle did.

That’s a dodge. A toaster has no ability to decide anything, thus “should” doesn’t apply. Sally *ought *to believe what her evidence supports. This is a valid use of the word “ought”.

Your analogy isn’t perfect: you don’t require emotions to experience the apple. You do, however, with morals. I think this is a bit suspicious, don’t you? We don’t sense morals, but we feel them, and only when emotions are present.

You require sensations, with an apple. The analogy works perfectly:

Person > Sensation > “(I am justified in believing) this is an apple” < Apple (physical reality)
Person > Intuition > “(I am justified in believing) murder is wrong” < Moral reality

What you call emotion, I call intuition. The emotions are caused by the intuitions (and the person’s psychology).

Let’s use a different approach: If you see a beautiful painting, do you think “that painting has the objective quality of beauty” or “that painting pleases me in such a way that I feel it’s beautiful?” Is the beauty produced as a feeling in your mind, or does it exist in the painting regardless of your perception?

There is obviously *something *about the form or content of the painting that causes me to find it beautiful. That does not mean that beauty exists in the painting.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Would you say the same of beauty and ugliness? You’re giving feelings far too much ground by qualifying them as perceptions. Beauty and ugliness don’t really exist as objective properties, they’re just abstractions caused by feelings. Why should I think of ethics differently?

Where do these feelings come from, if they are not responses to the world?