Teleological suspension of the ethical?

[Areopagite]

I don’t think morality can be explained away that simply.

I wasn’t “explaining it away” at all. I was defining it.

To say it is the fulfillment of our happiness sounds nice, but I can’t see how it holds water.

Most philosophers in history have defined morality that way. Even atheistic ones. Just FYI.

For many people, something that might make them happy would come at the expense of another. Indeed, that is why morality it tricky. I think that sometimes we need to postpone or deny our own happiness so that a fellow human may get closer to it.

I deny that. It may be noble and heroic to “postpone your own happiness” for the sake of the happiness of others … and it may even increase your own happiness in the end … but such a thing is not obligatory (rather it’s supererogatory). Heroism is to be admired but by definition it is not ethically required.

If morality simply followed the route of our own happiness, would it not come more easily?

I’m not sure what “it” means. Are you saying “would morality come more easily” or “would happiness come more easily”? In any case, for those who try to attain happiness in this life, I know very few who have attained it … especially hard for those who live immorally. Those who live moral lives seem more contented to me … more, dare I say, fulfilled.

I think the difficulty in pinning down morality shows just how complicated it can be. I will grant this, our happiness may be a component of it, but I think there is too much more to it for that to stand alone.

What then is your definition of morality then? If you don’t offer an alternative, then I will be quite satisfied with the one I have … and the one most people have had throughout history. It is only uncommon and strange philosophers who have tried to sunder “happiness” from “being good.” One of the worst conceptual divorces I know of.

If you are conceding that God could allow rape to be moral, you are in essence saying that anything can become moral if dictated by God.

God is not the only one in this life that can dictate something and thus make something moral. I believe a government has the moral right to execute a dangerous criminal if the safety of society cannot be insured otherwise. However, I don’t think private individuals have the right to just kill anyone they think is dangerous even if they have committed crimes. The leaders of a society have the right to make that call for the society. Likewise, the leaders of society can grant an individual to carry out the execution. Hence, the moral goodness or badness of an individual executing a criminal is dependent on the dictate of a higher authority. Same kind of thing happens with God’s dictates, because God has the right to end people’s lives too … anyone’s life in God’s case.

Now, I made a case to show how rape could possibly be permitted by God as well. I might be dead wrong. But simply saying that I’m wrong because then I am “in essence saying that anything can become moral if dictated by God” is not going to cut it. For, as I said before, certain dictates made by legitimate authorities can make certain actions moral. You have to prove why rape would not apply to that.

 

[Areopagite]

Then morality no longer becomes a separate ideal. It is whatever God says. The word good would become meaningless, because although we may view something one way currently in accordance with God’s rules if he decrees something completely against the current rules then this new decree becomes moral.

No, the word “good” does not become meaningless. It still means “that which fulfills human nature.” You have not offered a definition for “good,” and so I wonder if your idea of “good” is meaningless. Please, offer a definition for clarification.

I find that type of morality much less desirable than a morality independent of God. God, who knows of privileged information, can guide us, but is ultimately separate from morality.

We are obligated to pursue what we see as fulfilling to human nature as much possible. If we don’t know the “privileged information” of God which would help fulfill us even more, then we are not obliged to follow that information obviously. We must therefore go in accordance with what we can naturally know what will fulfill us. Hence, some morality can be known without divine revelation, but if we become supernaturally aware of what will further fulfill us, then we are obliged to take that into account accordingly.

I dislike using this line, but it was tossed around a lot when I was in Catholic school growing up. People would say that we cannot pretend to know the will of God. You may think things make sense one way, but He may cause something completely different to happen. He is so far beyond us that for us to wager what he would or might do it impossible.

Well, that’s bogus. The will of God is not completely mysterious, at least according to the Catholic Church. If God reveals His will to you (as He did with Abraham) then … you know the will of God.

With that in mind the crux of the argument becomes is morality something separate from God, or is something moral because God says it is?

The phrase “separate from God” is ambiguous.

Once again, ethics/morality is the branch of philosophy that studies the principles of action that work toward the fulfillment of human nature. Now, I claim (and the Church does too … and many other religions for that matter) that God created human nature and our ability to figure out what fulfills human nature. Hence, you could say that God not only created morality but also the ability to know what it is (and in that sense, it is not “separate from God”). This “ability to know certain moral principles” is a natural ability … that is, it does not rely on divine revelation (and in that sense it is “separate from God”). However, all that can possibly fulfill human nature is not restricted to natural knowledge but some is made available in divine revelation. In fact, God provides a way to not only fulfill us as humans but to go beyond that and make us one with the divine life (to “divinize” us). Thus, mere natural morality can be transcended if information is presented to us via supernatural channels … but the essence of morality is not changed, for it still remains “that which one does to be fulfilled.”

Does this make sense?

I think we can all agree that the morality of an action can change depending on what we know and by whose authority we are acting on. And yet the essence of morality doesn’t change. The principles stay the same. Nonetheless, the factors and circumstances change but with a nonetheless consistent application of the principles … which can result in an action being morally licit that would otherwise be illicit should the factors and circumstances be different. Am I out in left field here?

Once again, Murmur, I would ask of you your definition of “good.” That is, if you have one.

 

[ThomasToo]

Self-evident, eh? I don’t know about that. But, nonetheless, I agree that acting rightly is to pursue the good. Now, of course, we have the colossal task of defining what “the good” is. For without a clear conception of that, we are unequipped to show how our moral norms assist in the attainment of the good.

I think it is self evident, at least per Aristotle as I describe below.

Well, I’m sorry, you should first parse out what you think “the good” is before you start preaching what you think moral norms should be. That’s my advice, if one wishes to play the role of the serious philosopher and pass judgment on God’s acts. Do you disagree?

I think that only in two of those situations (aretaic and consequentalistic ethics) is the notion of the good, strictly speaking, necessary. If we truck with Kant then I’m not quite sure the question has neatly the same weight it does in the other two cases. I think it is from him we also get arguably the best moral system (though my inter hedonist has always been a utilitarian). Right action, according to Kant, is determined by acting with moral maxims that are universalizable; that is to say that we must act such that ‘our maxims may be willed as universal moral law.’ I think in this case your argument below has a couple problems.

But, as I promised, I shall now answer your questions:

First of all, I would say, for humans, that “the good” (i.e. what morality aims to achieve) is merely what fulfills human nature, i.e. what makes us attain happiness. Those actions which advance us toward our perfection as humans are called moral, and those which deter us from it are called immoral. This is how morality/ethics is defined, I think. Aristotle seems to say exactly this in the Nicomachean Ethics.

This is, more or less, how Aristotle defines ‘the good:’ human flourishing. I, however, have always had trouble with his claim because his argument for this is that ‘the good’ is the thing perused for its own sake and I think Mill and Bentham have a more than legitimate argument that pleasure (and the privation of pain) also fulfill this description. Just as it is nonsensical to ask someone ‘why do you seek the good?’ (the answer is simply ‘it is good.’ so too is it nonsensical to ask someone ‘why do you seek pleasurable?’

Now, God by nature is fulfilled and perfect. Hence, “the good” with reference to God is entirely different. There is nothing that will make him less perfect, otherwise He wouldn’t be God by definition. Thus, you cannot simply impose “human morality” on God … unless perhaps by some nuanced analogical qualification … but you would need to back your claims up very carefully.

I think that the universalizable moral maxim argument hits here. Let us set aside for a moment the moral rightness of slavery and assume I own someone. It is hardly morally right (in a deontological context), though completely within my power, to put my slave to death because my moral maxim cannot be universalized. The fact that God is as far above the stars as the stars are above us is, frankly, irrelevant since such an ethic does not rely on perfection and fulfillment.

Now, since it is completely with God’s jurisdiction to take life away, it is also within His authority to be able to grant human agents authority to take life away as well. Abraham would normally not have the right to kill his son Isaac, but if he was given the authority by God, then certainly Abraham would then have the authority to do so. This is what Thomas Aquinas said. And frankly, it makes a lot of sense…

to you. I’m still not there yet.

Now … the very interesting question regarding rape. Can God grant someone the permission to rape another person? Can God make it moral for someone to have sex against the other person’s will? First of all, to thoroughly investigate the question, we must examine why rape is considered immoral. We would have to establish what exactly the nature of sex is and how its proper use necessarily involves it being consensual and why violating that would inhibit human fulfillment. JP2 obviously has a lot to say about this… [redacted for space reasons]…
But who knows? I might be totally and devastatingly wrong. I admit I have not devoted much thought to this particular issue. I am open to harsh criticism. What do I know? I’m just some guy.

I don’t think the rape case is nearly as simply as you say. Rape is not wrong just because it is a misuse of sex; it is wrong because it is, arguably, one of the two greatest breaches of bodily integrity that can be forced on a human soul. Similarly I don’t think God could rightly and morally ordain torture. To allow either such violation completely violates, what I see to be at least, the notion of intrinsically evil acts; if we can conceive of a situation in which the are truly morally licit then they are not intrinsically evil.

 

[tonyrey]

I think human sacrifice is barbaric, yes. If we were talking about a situation where giving up one’s life were truly the only way to save the lives of others (e.g. a soldier throwing himself on a grenade) we may have an argument but even the Church does not say God was limited so achieving man’s salvation by that act but only that it was necessary in the sense of being best and most fitting. I don’t think we would say the same of a soldier who threw himself on a small bomb whose countdown timer had 20 seconds left if in that time he and his comrades could evacuate the area or put the weapon at a safe distance.

I agree the issue is the same as suicide but my priest always got angry when I said that. I think, however, we are more or less beyond the need for specific examples and ought to be able to discuss the issue itself and not bandy about with what ifs.

So we agree that there are occasions when self-sacrifice is justified. There are also occasions when we are justified in sacrificing some to save others. To allow a few to die to save a large number would be the lesser of two evils…

 

[ThomasToo]

So we agree that there are occasions when self-sacrifice is justified. There are also occasions when we are justified in sacrificing some to save others. To allow a few to die to save a large number would be the lesser of two evils…

You mean in a situation, for example, where there is a runaway trolley and five and one person have been bound to the tracks? Or when there are not enough life boats?

I don’t think there are situations where we are justified in sacrificing others. Allowing them to die because it is the least of possible evils perhaps but I cannot imagine a situation where it would be in the greatest good to, for example, shoot one person as opposed to shooting five.

 

[Leela]

I don’t think this would necessarily follow. God can command appealing to Himself because He IS goodness … thus goodness would not be external to God.

If Goodness is nothing more than Godness, then what does it mean when Christians say that God is good? I have always taken them to be describing God as being good (in which case, what is the standard for good if not God himself?) rather than defining good to be whatever God is like (which is WSP’s take and makes goodness arbitrary). So I think you still have the same dilemma as before when you say that goodness is essential to God’s nature. Socrates can still ask: s goodness essential to God’s nature because it is good, or is goodness good because it is essential to God’s nature?

Best,
Leela

 

[warpspeedpetey]

makes goodness arbitrary

so what? why is that a problem?

 

[ThomasToo]

so what? why is that a problem?

Because none of us want to support a view that ethical norms are arbitrary. Honestly, you don’t either; if moral norms are truly arbitrary then there is, for example, no reason homosexual actions are objectively wrong.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Because none of us want to support a view that ethical norms are arbitrary. Honestly, you don’t either; if moral norms are truly arbitrary then there is, for example, no reason homosexual actions are objectively wrong.

the entire objective/subjective component to these debates is a false idea. what is objective or subjective is entirely a function of perspective. what from G-ds viewpoint is subjective, from ours, is objective.

G-d has the right as Creator, to set any moral standard he pleases. we do not have that right.

 

[ThomasToo]

G-d has the right as Creator, to set any moral standard he pleases.

I say this with all due respect, please read through this thread again. This is far from a certainty and we are asking the question, to use your words, does ‘God has the right as Creator, to set any moral standard he pleases’?

You are welcome to speculate on the point but I would respectfully ask that you do not simply assert your point as though it were self-evidently and unambiguously true and that the rest of us are of lesser intellect for disagreeing with you.

 

[tonyrey]

You mean in a situation, for example, where there is a runaway trolley and five and one person have been bound to the tracks? Or when there are not enough life boats?

I don’t think there are situations where we are justified in sacrificing others. Allowing them to die because it is the least of possible evils perhaps but I cannot imagine a situation where it would be in the greatest good to, for example, shoot one person as opposed to shooting five.

What about shooting one person as opposed to letting five hundred or five thousand be shot?
What reason can you give for **not **shooting one person to save others?

 

[ThomasToo]

What about shooting one person as opposed to letting five hundred or five thousand be shot?
What reason can you give for **not **shooting one person to save others?

Shooting people is wrong? I think your priest would side with me on this one; the deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere wrong. It is unimportant that if you, for example, shoot me in the face that the mad gunman will not shoot 50 people standing somewhere else.

Letting oneself be shot to fulfill the same criterion is another case but if one could free the 50 another way that seems substantially more licit (and I think in that case one would me prohibited from killing oneself).

 

[SenorSalsa]

First, in regards to the Sacrifice of Isaac, it is important to point out that it was never God’s intention to have Abraham sacrifice Isaac. It was always, from the beginning, his plan to stay Abraham’s hand.

Additionally, it could be said that Abraham’s main intention was to follow God’s will, and as a corollary to that intention was the intention to sacrifice his son. However, since it was never actually God’s will to have Isaac sacrificed, it seems to me (in ways I can’t quite formulate into text right now) that Abraham’s intention is not evil. His intention to follow God’s will and that is clearly his main intention in is choice to sacrifice his son. Prior to the command, he did not want to sacrifice his son. After it, he wanted to sacrifice his son, not because he wanted to do the act, but because he wanted to follow God, and once his hand was stayed, not only was he relieved, but he presumably never considered sacrificing his son again. His intention was to follow God, not necessarily to sacrifice his son.

In regards to the Euthyphro debate, it is incorrect to say that it is good because God commands it (as in Divine Command Theory) because this admits that it could be otherwise, and yet God could not be otherwise. Therefore, it can not be good simply because God commands it

On the other hand, it can not be the case that it is good and therefore God commands it, because this admits that there is an authority outside, and above, God, and yet God is all powerful and is above all things.

Therefore, there must be a third answer. Thomas Aquinas says that the answer is sort of a combination of the two. Good, Virtue, etc. are part of the very essence of God. Moral Commands and Obligations are a direct reflection of that Good, Virtue that is part of God’s being. In other words, God commands it because he must, because to do otherwise would be to contradict himself. This eliminates the outside authority, and the possibility of change.

 

[rfulks]

For anyone interested, there is an exceptionally good course by Hubert Dreyfus at UC Berkeley, entirely podcast online, in which he discusses Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (including the telelological suspension of the ethical) among other works of existentialism. I found this course a few years ago when I was reading the Brothers Karamazov, which is one of the books he discusses, and the course is so good that I went ahead and read the Kierkegaard and Nietzche (and watched the films) that he bases his lectures on. The link is here: webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978306

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I say this with all due respect, please read through this thread again. This is far from a certainty and we are asking the question, to use your words, does ‘God has the right as Creator, to set any moral standard he pleases’?

if you disagree, please offer or direct me to a refutation of this statement.

’God has the right as Creator, to set any moral standard he pleases’

 

[SenorSalsa]

Shooting people is wrong? I think your priest would side with me on this one; the deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere wrong. It is unimportant that if you, for example, shoot me in the face that the mad gunman will not shoot 50 people standing somewhere else.

Letting oneself be shot to fulfill the same criterion is another case but if one could free the 50 another way that seems substantially more licit (and I think in that case one would me prohibited from killing oneself).

Principle of Double Effect comes into play here (In my thinking, I know double effect is far from being accepted by all people)

Its general rules are these (copied from Wikipedia, who probably copied them from somewhere else)

1. The nature-of-the-act condition. The action must be either morally good or indifferent.
2. The means-end condition. The bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect.
3. The right-intention condition. The intention must be the achieving of only the good effect, with the bad effect being only an unintended side effect.
4. The proportionality condition The good effect must be at least equivalent in importance to the bad effect.

So in the case of shooting a person to save a group of hostages we could apply them like this

1. Shooting is morally neutral. Even shooting a person is morally neutral, since circumstances must be accounted for. Actions like rape, abortion, etc. can never satisfy DE because they are intrinsically evil acts. Additionally, I cannot kill an innocent person, the person I shoot must be, for example, the person holding people hostage.
2. I am rearranging the points, because it is easier to deal with 3 first. My intention is to free the hostages. Put it this way: Do I want to kill a person, or do I want to free innocent people. Clearly, if I want to kill a person, my act is evil, but If I want to free people, and by doing this, I have to kill a person, then it is not wrong
3. Admittedly, my last conclusion is not entirely true. We must take into account this rule. I cannot do evil in order to do good (ends do not justify means). For example, if the hostage taker said “kill this banker, then you all can go free”, we could not kill the banker. In this case the evil is done in order to get a good. In the original case, I am not killing the man in order to free the people, rather I am freeing the people by killing the person (I know this sounds like a word game, and this is why some people deny this answer to the problem). The bad effect and the good effect must be simultaneous. It isn’t step 1. Kill person step 2. free people. its Step 1. kill person/people are free.
4. I cannot kill a whole town to save one innocent prisoner. I can’t kill everybody involved in his trial and sentencing, even though they were involved in his wrongful imprisonment, killing that many people outweighs a possible good. However, killing a hostage taker to free a building full of people means the good will outweigh the bad.

I will add my own 5. All other options must have been exhausted by this point. Using DE should be a last resort where all peaceful options have failed

 

[SenorSalsa]

if you disagree, please offer or direct me to a refutation of this statement.

’God has the right as Creator, to set any moral standard he pleases’

God has the right as Creator to set any moral standard he pleases
God has the right to declare murder moral
God has said that murder is immoral
therefore, God could say other than what he has said
Therefore, God is mutable
On the Contrary, the Church has held that God is immutable
Therefore, God could not say other than what he has said
Therefore, murder must be immoral
Therefore, God could not say murder is moral
Therefore, God cannot as Creator, set any moral standard he pleases.

Or, as a second proof, let us use an statement which logically follows yours

God has the right as Creator, to do anything he pleases
Yet God has said “The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again”
and again “My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done.”
and again “the Son of man must suffer many things”
Therefore, there are things God must do
Therefore, God does not have the right as Creator, to do anything he pleases.

 

[tonyrey]

Shooting people is wrong? I think your priest would side with me on this one; the deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere wrong. It is unimportant that if you, for example, shoot me in the face that the mad gunman will not shoot 50 people standing somewhere else.

Shooting people is evil but not necessarily wrong.The deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere **evil **but not necessarily wrong. It is evil that I kill you to save 50 people but it is right that I kill you because it is the lesser of two evils….

Letting oneself be shot to fulfill the same criterion is another case but if one could free the 50 another way that seems substantially more licit (and I think in that case one would be prohibited from killing oneself).

We have to assume that killing an innocent person is** the only way **to free the 50. Fortunately it rarely, if ever, happens…

 

[ThomasToo]

Principle of Double Effect comes into play here…

So in the case of shooting a person to save a group of hostages we could apply them like this

1. Shooting is morally neutral. Even shooting a person is morally neutral, since circumstances must be accounted for. Actions like rape, abortion, etc. can never satisfy DE because they are intrinsically evil acts. Additionally, I cannot kill an innocent person, the person I shoot must be, for example, the person holding people hostage.
2. I am rearranging the points, because it is easier to deal with 3 first. My intention is to free the hostages. Put it this way: Do I want to kill a person, or do I want to free innocent people. Clearly, if I want to kill a person, my act is evil, but If I want to free people, and by doing this, I have to kill a person, then it is not wrong
3. Admittedly, my last conclusion is not entirely true. We must take into account this rule. I cannot do evil in order to do good (ends do not justify means). For example, if the hostage taker said “kill this banker, then you all can go free”, we could not kill the banker. In this case the evil is done in order to get a good. In the original case, I am not killing the man in order to free the people, rather I am freeing the people by killing the person (I know this sounds like a word game, and this is why some people deny this answer to the problem). The bad effect and the good effect must be simultaneous. It isn’t step 1. Kill person step 2. free people. its Step 1. kill person/people are free.
4. I cannot kill a whole town to save one innocent prisoner. I can’t kill everybody involved in his trial and sentencing, even though they were involved in his wrongful imprisonment, killing that many people outweighs a possible good. However, killing a hostage taker to free a building full of people means the good will outweigh the bad.

I will add my own 5. All other options must have been exhausted by this point. Using DE should be a last resort where all peaceful options have failed

I thought PDE was where you were going with this and I think I may have misunderstood your case. If you are talking about, for example, the situation you set up in (3) ‘kill this banker, then you all can go free,’ as should be clear when I said ‘the deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere wrong.’

I apologize for the misunderstanding.

 

[SenorSalsa]

I thought PDE was where you were going with this and I think I may have misunderstood your case. If you are talking about, for example, the situation you set up in (3) ‘kill this banker, then you all can go free,’ as should be clear when I said ‘the deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere wrong.’

I apologize for the misunderstanding.

I’m glad you agree with me, but I didn’t originally propose the problem, so I don’t know what the original intention was, other than to say it was Tonyrey’s post, so I would check out his response