You might be a materialist if ...
DS
Materialism or Methodological Naturalism:
Number 10: You enter and exit buildings through doorways instead of
teleporting in; and if you <i>open</i> a closed door instead of trying
to walk through it you're a super-duper double-duped materialist.
Number 9: You rely on sex to produce biological offspring
Number 8: You think round objects roll better than cubical ones AND
that's always been the case
Number 7: You're afraid of heights and the idea of falling long
distances frightens you.
Number 6: If you go to the ER for a perforated bowel or a ruptured
spleen instead of visiting the local psychic faith healer, you might
be succumbing to materialism. Shame on you.
Number 5: Your mind and your body tend to go most places
<i>together</i>
Number 4: You might be under the dogmatic spell of the materialist
lobby if you're going to physically vote in the Presidential election
instead of employing a super natural alternative.
Number 3: You infer drinking water will quench your thirst based on
past experience. Be strong in your beliefs! Don't make egregious
materialist speculations like this.
Number 2: If you're reading this online instead of using remote
viewing, you're probably a hopeless materialist.
And the number reason sign you might be a materialist: You count on a
device called a <i>throttle</i> to make your car speed up and a
<i>brake</i> to make your car slow down; AND you use the steering
wheel <i>a lot</i>.
You do any of those things and thousands more like them on a regular
basis and you're a <i>habitual</i> materialist. Shame on you!
The point of this satire? Well first it's too point out how
ridiculously absurd, not to mention hypocritical, the Discovery
Institute's philosophical objections to the scientific method are.
Failing that maybe other people can get some amusement out of the
'reality challenged' state of mind in which the initial premise in
dealing with conflicting data is that 'facts don't count because
they're not the product of an open minded science.'
I'll concede science has overlooked the supernatural methodologies
when and if the IDCists actually produce a single repeatable case of
such an event. Until then ... please, before you shoot your mouth off
complaining about materialist bias in science, and make an ass out of
yourself in the process, how about cleaning up your own act first?
Bobby D. Bryant
> Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of Materialism
> or Methodological Naturalism:
>
> Number 10: You enter and exit buildings through doorways instead of
> teleporting in; and if you <i>open</i> a closed door instead of trying
> to walk through it you're a super-duper double-duped materialist.
Calls to mind last year's story about a ghost caught on a security camera,
which came in through the door and politely closed it behind itself.
> Number 9: You rely on sex to produce biological offspring
>
> Number 8: You think round objects roll better than cubical ones AND
> that's always been the case
>
> Number 7: You're afraid of heights and the idea of falling long
> distances frightens you.
>
> Number 6: If you go to the ER for a perforated bowel or a ruptured
> spleen instead of visiting the local psychic faith healer, you might be
> succumbing to materialism. Shame on you.
>
> Number 5: Your mind and your body tend to go most places <i>together</i>
That may merely be indicative of abstinence...
> Number 4: You might be under the dogmatic spell of the materialist lobby
> if you're going to physically vote in the Presidential election instead
> of employing a super natural alternative.
Or wait until everyone else votes and hack the vote-counting server
afterward.
> Number 3: You infer drinking water will quench your thirst based on past
> experience. Be strong in your beliefs! Don't make egregious materialist
> speculations like this.
>
> Number 2: If you're reading this online instead of using remote viewing,
> you're probably a hopeless materialist.
>
> And the number reason sign you might be a materialist: You count on a
> device called a <i>throttle</i> to make your car speed up and a
> <i>brake</i> to make your car slow down; AND you use the steering wheel
> <i>a lot</i>.
>
> You do any of those things and thousands more like them on a regular
> basis and you're a <i>habitual</i> materialist. Shame on you!
>
> The point of this satire? Well first it's too point out how ridiculously
> absurd, not to mention hypocritical, the Discovery Institute's
> philosophical objections to the scientific method are. Failing that
> maybe other people can get some amusement out of the 'reality
> challenged' state of mind in which the initial premise in dealing with
> conflicting data is that 'facts don't count because they're not the
> product of an open minded science.'
"differently realitied"
> I'll concede science has overlooked the supernatural methodologies when
> and if the IDCists actually produce a single repeatable case of such an
> event. Until then ... please, before you shoot your mouth off
> complaining about materialist bias in science, and make an ass out of
> yourself in the process, how about cleaning up your own act first?
Pagano says the way to avoid the materialistic bias is to accept all his
beliefs as true and then apply methodological naturalism to everything
else.
But for some reason the supernatural can't affect mechanical devices, so
keep using that steering wheel, and take your non-materialist friends'
keys away if you must.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Chris Thompson
news:cf236d7c.0409...@posting.google.com:
> Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of
> Materialism or Methodological Naturalism:
>
> Number 10: You enter and exit buildings through doorways instead of
> teleporting in; and if you <i>open</i> a closed door instead of trying
> to walk through it you're a super-duper double-duped materialist.
>
> Number 9: You rely on sex to produce biological offspring
>
> Number 8: You think round objects roll better than cubical ones AND
> that's always been the case
>
> Number 7: You're afraid of heights and the idea of falling long
> distances frightens you.
>
> Number 6: If you go to the ER for a perforated bowel or a ruptured
> spleen instead of visiting the local psychic faith healer, you might
> be succumbing to materialism. Shame on you.
>
> Number 5: Your mind and your body tend to go most places
> <i>together</i>
I am glad you wrote "most". There are times, mistily recalled, in the
age-period 17-25, when this was not always the case.
Chris
snip
--
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield." --George Orwell, 1946, "Under Your Nose"
John Vreeland
miracles at all. They seem to want to have things both ways. On one
hand they could just claim the stories in the bible are a series of
miracles from cover to cover--we would not be able to refute that--but
they will not do that. They try to use science as a tool to confirm
astounding biblical events. OTOH they want science to admit miracles
somehow. They seem not to understand what science is, at all, except
that science is somehow "good" and therefor must confirm the bible.
Walter Bushell
Chris Thompson <rockw...@TAKEOUTerols.com> wrote:
> darksyd...@aol.com (DS) wrote in
> news:cf236d7c.0409...@posting.google.com:
>
> > Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of
> > Materialism or Methodological Naturalism:
> >
> > Number 10: You enter and exit buildings through doorways instead of
> > teleporting in; and if you <i>open</i> a closed door instead of trying
> > to walk through it you're a super-duper double-duped materialist.
> >
> > Number 9: You rely on sex to produce biological offspring
> >
> > Number 8: You think round objects roll better than cubical ones AND
> > that's always been the case
> >
> > Number 7: You're afraid of heights and the idea of falling long
> > distances frightens you.
> >
> > Number 6: If you go to the ER for a perforated bowel or a ruptured
> > spleen instead of visiting the local psychic faith healer, you might
> > be succumbing to materialism. Shame on you.
> >
> > Number 5: Your mind and your body tend to go most places
> > <i>together</i>
>
> I am glad you wrote "most". There are times, mistily recalled, in the
> age-period 17-25, when this was not always the case.
>
> Chris
>
> snip
How does anyone whose mind and body have to be in same place get through
high school? Even in this newsgroup we have people posting from another
planet.
--
Guns don't kill people; automobiles kill people.
Bill McHale
> Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of
> Materialism or Methodological Naturalism:
>
<snip>
>
> Number 9: You rely on sex to produce biological offspring
>
So you are not a materialist if you use in vitro or cloning? :)
<snip>
> Number 3: You infer drinking water will quench your thirst based on
> past experience. Be strong in your beliefs! Don't make egregious
> materialist speculations like this.
>
Think there is something in the Bible about drinking water to quench
thirst so that is ok :)
<snip>
> And the number reason sign you might be a materialist: You count on a
> device called a <i>throttle</i> to make your car speed up and a
> <i>brake</i> to make your car slow down; AND you use the steering
> wheel <i>a lot</i>.
>
Lets see, we have alot of AND conditionals there... so anyone who can
escape any of them is not a materialist. Therefore, since Disiel
engines don't have throttles (nor do electrics, but they have short
ranges), just accelerators, if you drive one you aint a materialist
because (A && B) && C evaluates to 0 if A, B or C equals 0 :)
--
Bill
darth_versive
Yes, satire and caricature are fun, but I don't think they'll get the
joke. These supernaturalists, after all, do not deny the existence of
the material world, or rely upon miracles to get through everyday
life.
I get what you're saying, and it's pretty funny, but few of them have
such a sense of humor.
The reason I bring this up is that, while members of the Discovery
Institute, and their followers, have a very distorted understanding of
what science is, their philosophical objections to scientific method
are not so "ridiculously absurd, not to mention hypocritical" as you
have indicated. No more so than the philosophical objections of a
Platonist, for example, who might see teleology in nature where it
doesn't exist. Wrong, in my view, but neither "ridiculously absurd,"
nor "hypocritical."
Such philosophical objections may be both false and a result of a
basic ignorance of science, but they are too dangerously plausible to
the scientifically illiterate to dismiss them with mere ridicule or
satire. They deserve a certain level of healthy respect. Only when
we take them as seriously as they deserve, can we really get to work
on undermining their appeal among those that hold to them. Satire,
caricature, and ridicule may be fun for us to engage in, but it really
doesn't work on people who are unable to see how the caricature
applies to them. They wouldn't get the joke. They take their own
ideas too seriously for that. And therefore, so should we, in my
view.
DV
puppe...@hotmail.com
> On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:55:19 +0000, DS wrote:
>
> > Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of Materialism
> > or Methodological Naturalism:
> > Number 5: Your mind and your body tend to go most places <i>together</i>
>
> That may merely be indicative of abstinence...
Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.
Socks
DS
> escape any of them is not a materialist. Therefore, since Disiel
> engines don't have throttles (nor do electrics, but they have short
> ranges), just accelerators, if you drive one you aint a materialist
> because (A && B) && C evaluates to 0 if A, B or C equals 0 :)
LOL .. I think you're taking this a little too seriously Bill.
.. However the 'conditionals' are not exclusive (You MIGHT be a
materialst IF...). They're inclusive. If you do any of these things ->
you might be a materialist. If you don't do any of these things the
conditionals don't apply, so your status is not constrained. IOW; You
can still be a materialist.
How about some others chime in on any other activities which might
make one a user of materialist methodologies? Maybe if we get a good
long list we can point out explicitly what hypocritical sacks of lying
shit these DI fuckers are. Then we can challenge them to practice what
they preach.
I'd kind of like to see these evil bastards stop flapping their gums
whining about materialism and start doing what they're telling
scientists to do: Use the supernatural alternatives. Not that that is
going to happen, but we can have some fun exposing them.
Bill McHale
> > Lets see, we have alot of AND conditionals there... so anyone who can
> > escape any of them is not a materialist. Therefore, since Disiel
> > engines don't have throttles (nor do electrics, but they have short
> > ranges), just accelerators, if you drive one you aint a materialist
> > because (A && B) && C evaluates to 0 if A, B or C equals 0 :)
>
> LOL .. I think you're taking this a little too seriously Bill.
>
If you think there was anything serious about what I wrote then you
have been reading this group way too long :).
> .. However the 'conditionals' are not exclusive (You MIGHT be a
> materialst IF...). They're inclusive. If you do any of these things ->
> you might be a materialist. If you don't do any of these things the
> conditionals don't apply, so your status is not constrained. IOW; You
> can still be a materialist.
>
Hehe, I am applying programming logic. The Pseudo code would look
something like this.
if (A AND B AND C) then
you might be a materialist
else
not a materialist.
In that logic all conditionals have to be true to be a possible
materialist.
> How about some others chime in on any other activities which might
> make one a user of materialist methodologies? Maybe if we get a good
> long list we can point out explicitly what hypocritical sacks of lying
> shit these DI fuckers are. Then we can challenge them to practice what
> they preach.
Not sure who you mean by DI.. but I will see if I can come up with
some potential items :).
--
Bill
Scott
"DS" <darksyd...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:cf236d7c.0409...@posting.google.com...
> Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of
> Materialism or Methodological Naturalism:
You think there is no justification for any particular moral system, be that
of humanism, conservativism, liberalism, Islam, Nazism, etc. That all moral
codes are self-supporting.
Scott
> > Lets see, we have alot of AND conditionals there... so anyone who can
> > escape any of them is not a materialist. Therefore, since Disiel
> > engines don't have throttles (nor do electrics, but they have short
> > ranges), just accelerators, if you drive one you aint a materialist
> > because (A && B) && C evaluates to 0 if A, B or C equals 0 :)
>
> LOL .. I think you're taking this a little too seriously Bill.
>
> .. However the 'conditionals' are not exclusive (You MIGHT be a
> materialst IF...). They're inclusive. If you do any of these things ->
> you might be a materialist. If you don't do any of these things the
> conditionals don't apply, so your status is not constrained. IOW; You
> can still be a materialist.
>
> How about some others chime in on any other activities which might
> make one a user of materialist methodologies? Maybe if we get a good
> long list we can point out explicitly what hypocritical sacks of lying
> shit these DI fuckers are. Then we can challenge them to practice what
> they preach.
>
You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
Louann Miller
wrote:
>You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
I'm torn between "cite?" and "You misspelled 'New Ager'" as first
responses here. There's compelling evidence for the existence of evil
in enough detail to satisfy the most exacting logical positivist -- we
call it history.
John Wilkins
I guess he's conflating "materialist" with "relativist".
--
John S. Wilkins jo...@wilkins.id.au
web: www.wilkins.id.au blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
God cheats
Hiero5ant
"John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
news:1gkvruh.5vhv951jg06a1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:39:22 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
>>
>> I'm torn between "cite?" and "You misspelled 'New Ager'" as first
>> responses here. There's compelling evidence for the existence of evil
>> in enough detail to satisfy the most exacting logical positivist -- we
>> call it history.
>
> I guess he's conflating "materialist" with "relativist".
Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers "evil" to have
some sort of cosmological being, a part of the furniture of the universe the
way people sometimes spoke (or still speak) of "darkness" or "coldness" as
an actual substance rather than a material property. "And Yahweh separated
the light from the darkness", anyone?
In this sense I deny the existence of evil, and I would have to say
that that would be part and parcel of my materialism. Tilting Quinian, there
is no value of any variable that answers to that description.
Scott
"Hiero5ant" <vze4...@verizon.com> wrote in message
news:7ry6d.11444$XC.3844@trndny08...
>
> "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> news:1gkvruh.5vhv951jg06a1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:39:22 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
> >>
> >> I'm torn between "cite?" and "You misspelled 'New Ager'" as first
> >> responses here.
<it's a mild dyslexia thing>
There's compelling evidence for the existence of evil
> >> in enough detail to satisfy the most exacting logical positivist -- we
> >> call it history.
> >
> > I guess he's conflating "materialist" with "relativist".
Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
materialism?
>
> Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers "evil" to have
> some sort of cosmological being, a part of the furniture of the universe
the
> way people sometimes spoke (or still speak) of "darkness" or "coldness" as
> an actual substance rather than a material property. "And Yahweh separated
> the light from the darkness", anyone?
> In this sense I deny the existence of evil, and I would have to say
> that that would be part and parcel of my materialism. Tilting Quinian,
there
> is no value of any variable that answers to that description.
Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
Scott
Bobby D. Bryant
> Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> materialism?
Answer it, John! And no distracting asides about cladistics!!!
Von Smith
> "Hiero5ant" <vze4...@verizon.com> wrote in message
> news:7ry6d.11444$XC.3844@trndny08...
> >
> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:1gkvruh.5vhv951jg06a1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > > Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:39:22 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
> > >>
> > >> I'm torn between "cite?" and "You misspelled 'New Ager'" as first
> > >> responses here.
>
> <it's a mild dyslexia thing>
>
> There's compelling evidence for the existence of evil
> > >> in enough detail to satisfy the most exacting logical positivist -- we
> > >> call it history.
> > >
> > > I guess he's conflating "materialist" with "relativist".
>
>
> Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> materialism?
Is that the doctrine that all philosophers evolved from a common
ancestor via mindless processes?
Von Smith
Fortuna nimis dat multis, satis nulli.
Mark Isaak
wrote:
>Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
>materialism?
I'm naive enough about philosophy to foolishly jump in and answer
this. Yes, morality can be both objective and materialistic. I
believe utilitarianism qualifies, among other ethical systems.
However, I would argue that no morality, materialistic or not, can be
objective 100% of the time. There will always be new circumstances
arising which are not in the rule book, or for which different rules
in the book give conflicting directions. The only way to resolve a
brand new ethical dilemma is for the person at the center of it to
make up a new rule on the spot (even if the new rule is to postpone a
decision). And that will be subjective.
Okay, John. Eviscerate at your leisure.
>Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
Sometimes, not always.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Scott
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:47:21 +0000, Scott wrote:
>
> > Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> > materialism?
>
> Answer it, John! And no distracting asides about cladistics!!!
Bio/evolutionary fitness arguments for supporting correct/incorrect morality
are fallacious if nature is amoral - moral statements could have no
truth-value.
Scott
Scott
"Mark Isaak" <eci...@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote in message
news:og2ml0tfl8qq5bofg...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:47:21 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> >materialism?
>
> I'm naive enough about philosophy to foolishly jump in and answer
> this. Yes, morality can be both objective and materialistic. I
> believe utilitarianism qualifies, among other ethical systems.
>
> However, I would argue that no morality, materialistic or not, can be
> objective 100% of the time. There will always be new circumstances
> arising which are not in the rule book, or for which different rules
> in the book give conflicting directions. The only way to resolve a
> brand new ethical dilemma is for the person at the center of it to
> make up a new rule on the spot (even if the new rule is to postpone a
> decision). And that will be subjective.
>
> Okay, John. Eviscerate at your leisure.
>
> >Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
>
> Sometimes, not always.
Morality is either moral realism or moral anti-realism. There is no
empirical evidence for the former.
Scott
Louann Miller
<eci...@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote:
>On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:47:21 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
>>materialism?
>
>I'm naive enough about philosophy to foolishly jump in and answer
>this. Yes, morality can be both objective and materialistic. I
>believe utilitarianism qualifies, among other ethical systems.
The thing that strikes me about this whole line of questioning
(admittedly too late to reply directly to Scott) is that it seems to
be smuggling in an assumption that non-materialist or heck, let's just
say it, religious morality _is_ objective. If by 'objective' Scott
means 'consistent,' which seems to have a fighting chance given that
he used 'materialist' to mean 'relativist.' (If not, then I'm making a
separate point I suppose.)
I mean. Thou shalt not kill, unless it's self defense or warfare or
holy war or a legally sanctioned execution or a heretic who won't
recant.. Thou shalt not steal, but until recently it was okay to keep
slaves. Thou shalt not commit adultery, but men can have all the
mistresses they want. If the argument against "materialist" moral
codes is that they're too wobbly, I think it's a bit late to worry
about that. Non-materialist moral codes, on the historical record,
seem to already have made use of all the wobble room that's available.
It's not that I disagree about the existence of evil, far from it.
It's that I've already seen religion/faith/personal relationship with
God/name your formula tried as a cure for evil, and the success rate
is nothing to brag about.
Hiero5ant
Or normative quasi-realism. Just to round out the list.
John Wilkins
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:47:21 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> >materialism?
>
> I'm naive enough about philosophy to foolishly jump in and answer
> this. Yes, morality can be both objective and materialistic. I
> believe utilitarianism qualifies, among other ethical systems.
>
> However, I would argue that no morality, materialistic or not, can be
> objective 100% of the time. There will always be new circumstances
> arising which are not in the rule book, or for which different rules
> in the book give conflicting directions. The only way to resolve a
> brand new ethical dilemma is for the person at the center of it to
> make up a new rule on the spot (even if the new rule is to postpone a
> decision). And that will be subjective.
>
> Okay, John. Eviscerate at your leisure.
First of all, you are tending to downplay the communal nature of
morality. Some moral set of values has to be shared for it to play the
role moral systems almost by definition were required to play - that of
justifying actions or assigning blame. So you do not want pure
subjectivity, but the commensual intersubjectivity of a community.
Second, while I admit the possibility that moral value might be a
material property such as freedom from pain and maximal pleasure, in
fact I think that this is not the case. To assert this is, as we
disucced in the Hedonism thread recently, that there is a moral
principle that evaluates these things. Hence the principle "pain is
iherently evil and pleasure is inherently good" is not a natural
principle. In fact, it confuses psychological hedonism with utilitarian
ethics. The only realistic utilitarianism is rule utilitarianism, and so
it gets further away from that "natural" property anyway, as rules can
condone some pain for the greater good.
As to moral facts and ethical dilemmas, any moral system must angage
with actual cases - a new case can indeed generate a novel dilemma,
because the moral rules that were not until this case in conflict, now
are (consider debates over cloning).
>
> >Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
>
> Sometimes, not always.
>
> --
> Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
> "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
> the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
> being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
> exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
John Wilkins
> "Hiero5ant" <vze4...@verizon.com> wrote in message
> news:7ry6d.11444$XC.3844@trndny08...
> >
> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:1gkvruh.5vhv951jg06a1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > > Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:39:22 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
> > >>
> > >> I'm torn between "cite?" and "You misspelled 'New Ager'" as first
> > >> responses here.
>
> <it's a mild dyslexia thing>
>
> There's compelling evidence for the existence of evil
> > >> in enough detail to satisfy the most exacting logical positivist -- we
> > >> call it history.
> > >
> > > I guess he's conflating "materialist" with "relativist".
>
>
> Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> materialism?
Why not, if morality is a function of material properties? Personally I
don't think it is, but there's no barrier to it (Naturalistic Fallacy
notwithstanding; it's neither a fallacy nor naturalism that Moore
objects to).
But here's a deeper question - why would it matter? If morality is
relative, not absolute, subjective (or rather, intersubjective) not
objective, what of it? Is it any less morality for that? Is there a
reason why moral judgments cannot bemade and enforced by those who do
not think it is a matter of the fundamental furniture of the universe?
In short, why should values have to be properties of the universe?
>
>
> >
> > Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers "evil" to have
> > some sort of cosmological being, a part of the furniture of the universe
> the
> > way people sometimes spoke (or still speak) of "darkness" or "coldness" as
> > an actual substance rather than a material property. "And Yahweh separated
> > the light from the darkness", anyone?
> > In this sense I deny the existence of evil, and I would have to say
> > that that would be part and parcel of my materialism. Tilting Quinian,
> there
> > is no value of any variable that answers to that description.
>
> Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
>
Beholder*s*, plural. You have to have a community for it to be a moral
issue; otherwise it's just aesthetics.
Hiero5ant
To spin an ad hoc evo-psych just so story, people want value properties
to be objective, not because "without normative realism I would become a
baby-killing rapist vampire", but because built into our conception of moral
laws is the notion of submission and obedience to authority. I think this is
also why so many theists find "without a lawgiver there can be no laws" to
be a decisive argument. The secularisation of morality in modern philosophy
abates, but does not excise, this prerational tendency.
>> > Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers "evil" to
>> > have
>> > some sort of cosmological being, a part of the furniture of the
>> > universe
>> the
>> > way people sometimes spoke (or still speak) of "darkness" or "coldness"
>> > as
>> > an actual substance rather than a material property. "And Yahweh
>> > separated
>> > the light from the darkness", anyone?
>> > In this sense I deny the existence of evil, and I would have to
>> > say
>> > that that would be part and parcel of my materialism. Tilting Quinian,
>> there
>> > is no value of any variable that answers to that description.
>>
>> Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
>>
> Beholder*s*, plural. You have to have a community for it to be a moral
> issue; otherwise it's just aesthetics.
I would take half an exception to both of those disjuncts which I guess
adds up to one; I don't see why, if one is willing to say that aesthetic
issues can have an independence from community standards of beauty,
representation, and narrative convention, that one can't also say the same
about one's private moral decisions.
John Wilkins
> "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> news:1gkwxjc.2mhuws2aimtcN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
...
> >>
> >> Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> >> materialism?
> >
> > Why not, if morality is a function of material properties? Personally I
> > don't think it is, but there's no barrier to it (Naturalistic Fallacy
> > notwithstanding; it's neither a fallacy nor naturalism that Moore
> > objects to).
> >
> > But here's a deeper question - why would it matter? If morality is
> > relative, not absolute, subjective (or rather, intersubjective) not
> > objective, what of it? Is it any less morality for that? Is there a
> > reason why moral judgments cannot bemade and enforced by those who do
> > not think it is a matter of the fundamental furniture of the universe?
> > In short, why should values have to be properties of the universe?
>
> To spin an ad hoc evo-psych just so story, people want value properties
> to be objective, not because "without normative realism I would become a
> baby-killing rapist vampire", but because built into our conception of moral
> laws is the notion of submission and obedience to authority. I think this is
> also why so many theists find "without a lawgiver there can be no laws" to
> be a decisive argument. The secularisation of morality in modern philosophy
> abates, but does not excise, this prerational tendency.
Yes, but 'ware the genetic fallacy! Explaining why it is the way it is
(where it comes from, hence the "genetic") niether validates nor
invalidates a moral claim. In fact, this is also true of the theist -
*even if* it comes from God, that is not, in itself, reason to think it
is thereby Good (for as we know, God sometimes does some pretty nasty
things, if the Old Testament is to be believed).
I agree with your story, though, and in my view it is not a Just-So
account neither. Humans demonstrably are hierarchical social dominance
players - that is, we are pack animals. Submission to higher status
individuals is a strategy that is built into our repertoire of
behaviours (ask me off-list and in confidence until I get a publisher,
what my back-story to that is), and our social rationalisations are
derived from that fact.
...
> >>
> >> Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
> >>
> > Beholder*s*, plural. You have to have a community for it to be a moral
> > issue; otherwise it's just aesthetics.
>
> I would take half an exception to both of those disjuncts which I guess
> adds up to one; I don't see why, if one is willing to say that aesthetic
> issues can have an independence from community standards of beauty,
> representation, and narrative convention, that one can't also say the same
> about one's private moral decisions.
I said "just" aesthetics. It can, of course be both, but if it is *only*
an aesthetic choice, it ipso facto ain't ethics neither.
TomS
<kbaml055psfigr4g4...@4ax.com>, Louann Miller stated..."
I'd like to hear from any advocate of "intelligent design" how
they address the same issue.
Can we have an ethics which is based upon "intelligent design"?
If we are "designed" by "designer or designers unknown", for
"purposes unknown", how does that serve as a basis for an "objective
morality"?
Why does not "intelligent design" rather support ideas like
these:
Whatever we were designed to do is OK.
We can't know what the designers had in mind,
so we don't know what we're supposed to do.
etc.
--
---Tom S.
"It being as impossible that the Organized Body of a Chicken should by the Power
of any Mechanical Motions be formed out the unorganized Matter of an Egg; as
that the Sun, Moon and Stars, should by mere Mechanism arise out of a Chaos."
Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) "A Second Defence of the Immateriality ..."
Hiero5ant
Certainly. I wouldn't dream of using evolutionary psychology as a
standalone argument against realism (but conversely, one more or less *has*
to at least mention it as part of a coherent anti-realist position.
In this context, it was just a lateral way of answering "why should
values have to be properties of the universe?". I've seen dozens of formal
and informal debates over the existence of god and when this question comes
up the atheist/agnostic almost always tends to buy into the theist's
unspoken assumption and makes some handwaving about "morals come from
society" or "morals are about not harming people" rather than turning the
argument around and asking the theist why "obeying orders" is anything like
an objective morality.
Walter Bushell
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
The existence of evil is an opinion, surely.
Scott
> Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
>
> > "Hiero5ant" <vze4...@verizon.com> wrote in message
> > news:7ry6d.11444$XC.3844@trndny08...
> > >
> > > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > > news:1gkvruh.5vhv951jg06a1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > > > Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:39:22 +0000 (UTC), "Scott"
<sc...@nospam.net>
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> >You MIGHT be a materialist IF.....you deny the existence of evil
> > > >>
> > > >> I'm torn between "cite?" and "You misspelled 'New Ager'" as first
> > > >> responses here.
> >
> > <it's a mild dyslexia thing>
> >
> > There's compelling evidence for the existence of evil
> > > >> in enough detail to satisfy the most exacting logical positivist --
we
> > > >> call it history.
> > > >
> > > > I guess he's conflating "materialist" with "relativist".
> >
> >
> > Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> > materialism?
>
> Why not, if morality is a function of material properties?
If such a thing exist then morality is a function of material properties.
There is no evidence for such functions and it seems improbable that there
would be. Moral realism, it would seem to me, should become a study within
science, physics maybe, if those properties existed.
Personally I
> don't think it is, but there's no barrier to it (Naturalistic Fallacy
> notwithstanding; it's neither a fallacy nor naturalism that Moore
> objects to).
>
> But here's a deeper question - why would it matter? If morality is
> relative, not absolute, subjective (or rather, intersubjective) not
> objective, what of it?
If morality is relative then beliefs in a reality of, for example, moral
progress are in error since there is nothing real and descriptive to measure
that progress to. Progress is whatever a culture prescribes as progress.
Since there is no moral truth-values, no culture's morality (moral progress)
could be uniquely privileged over another's. Beliefs about *real* moral
progress would seem to be a kind of modern *mythology*. What is this
*essential* (intrinsic) dignity in humans that humanism asserts and how is
that 'intrinsic nature' compatible with philosophical materialism if there
is no evidence for such a function? I don't see the compatibility. I believe
in that dignity humans to human rights but I have no rational argument for
doing so. Declaration for human rights are synonymous with religious creeds
in that both assert something to be true for which they have no rational
evidence for. It seems a bit queer to see a self-proclaimed materialist
ridiculing someone for having non-materialistic, metaphysical beleifs but
then go on to argue as though he has knowledge of some moral truth/realism
actually existing.
(When I first started reading t.o. the amount of religious tolerance was
refreshing to someone like myself who is both an evolutionist and religious.
<sigh> I guess things evolve, even ngs. Now with all the anti-religious
rhetoric that shows up in here I don't know how the main contributors of
this ng can hope to have influence on state legislatures against teaching
creationism in science class. At one time that rhetoric seem to be
discouraged
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Anti-Religious%20Bigotry%20&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&as_ugroup=talk.origins&lr=&hl=en )
Is it any less morality for that? Is there a
> reason why moral judgments cannot bemade and enforced by those who do
> not think it is a matter of the fundamental furniture of the universe?
No. But what are the morals and what are the judgments, and are cultures'
moralities relatively equivalent? Is the morality of Islamic fundamentalists
less moral than another culture's? No, not in any factual sense if there is
no truth-values in moral statements. It's only a difference in preferences
where cultures might attempt to influence the other's preferences - the
other's value system.
> In short, why should values have to be properties of the universe?
They don't have to be. But if materialists' moral arguments imply a moral
realism and MR is not a property of the universe......
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers "evil" to
have
> > > some sort of cosmological being, a part of the furniture of the
universe
> > the
> > > way people sometimes spoke (or still speak) of "darkness" or
"coldness" as
> > > an actual substance rather than a material property. "And Yahweh
separated
> > > the light from the darkness", anyone?
> > > In this sense I deny the existence of evil, and I would have to
say
> > > that that would be part and parcel of my materialism. Tilting Quinian,
> > there
> > > is no value of any variable that answers to that description.
> >
> > Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
> >
> Beholder*s*, plural. You have to have a community for it to be a moral
> issue; otherwise it's just aesthetics.
Yes, but is a moral reformer culturally unethical and merely being
aesthetical? IOW was Schindler's act immoral? He was by Nazi standards.
Scott
Scott
"Louann Miller" <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
news:kbaml055psfigr4g4...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:16:27 +0000 (UTC), Mark Isaak
> <eci...@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:47:21 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>Yes. Question, John: Can you have objective morality with phylosophical
> >>materialism?
> >
> >I'm naive enough about philosophy to foolishly jump in and answer
> >this. Yes, morality can be both objective and materialistic. I
> >believe utilitarianism qualifies, among other ethical systems.
>
> The thing that strikes me about this whole line of questioning
> (admittedly too late to reply directly to Scott) is that it seems to
> be smuggling in an assumption that non-materialist or heck, let's just
> say it, religious morality _is_ objective.
It isn't necessary to be religious to believe in objective morality (moral
realism) but it does seem, to me, to require a rejection of philosophical
materialism.....if Occam's Razor is relevant.
If by 'objective' Scott
> means 'consistent,' which seems to have a fighting chance given that
> he used 'materialist' to mean 'relativist.' (If not, then I'm making a
> separate point I suppose.)
>
> I mean. Thou shalt not kill, unless it's self defense or warfare or
> holy war or a legally sanctioned execution or a heretic who won't
> recant.. Thou shalt not steal, but until recently it was okay to keep
> slaves. Thou shalt not commit adultery, but men can have all the
> mistresses they want. If the argument against "materialist" moral
> codes is that they're too wobbly, I think it's a bit late to worry
> about that. Non-materialist moral codes, on the historical record,
> seem to already have made use of all the wobble room that's available.
>
> It's not that I disagree about the existence of evil, far from it.
> It's that I've already seen religion/faith/personal relationship with
> God/name your formula tried as a cure for evil, and the success rate
> is nothing to brag about.
If morality is relative then
http://www-phil.tamu.edu/~b-everman/victor/moral/Relativism_handout.pdf
....what is evil is a rationalization with no truth-values associated.
John Wilkins
Prescriptive statements cannot be deduced from descriptive statements,
so the question is where prescriptions come from and why we ought to do
what they prescribe (IOW, why they are prescriptive).
The answer has to be something along the lines of
1. Prescriptive statements come from our nature as moral agents [with a
backstory as to why we are moral agents; I prefer the "pack animal"
account]
and
2. It is in the nature of prescriptive statements to involve value
ascriptions.
From which you can infer that shared value and pack animality is
required to make moral judgements and so forth.
But is this sufficient to force us to a moral anti-realism? If values
are part of our animal nature (and at least some have to be, or we
cannot learn), and we are forced by our pack dominance nature to obey
consensual values, then values are definitely *real* and moral
judgements are definitely something we must obey in the sense of a
determinant "must".
It is insufficient to do the Kantian categorical imperative trick of
imposing values on all rational agents irrespective of their biology,
though. And of course it doesn't impose a Platonic account of value (the
original meaning of "realist" was that an idea or concept was real
independently of anyone thinking it).
...
John Wilkins
Well, in biology, and a biologically-supported sociology, yes.
But you asked if objective morality could be materialistic, not if it
was. I think that morality *is* species- and culturally-relative. Of
course that only means that moral justifications must go on within a
species, and within a culture within that species. Dogs, even if they
are trained to respond to English commands and follow English road
rules, cannot be censured for failing to stop at a Stop Sign or for
stealing a baby's candy.
>
> > Personally I
> > don't think it is, but there's no barrier to it (Naturalistic Fallacy
> > notwithstanding; it's neither a fallacy nor naturalism that Moore
> > objects to).
> >
> > But here's a deeper question - why would it matter? If morality is
> > relative, not absolute, subjective (or rather, intersubjective) not
> > objective, what of it?
>
> If morality is relative then beliefs in a reality of, for example, moral
> progress are in error since there is nothing real and descriptive to measure
> that progress to. Progress is whatever a culture prescribes as progress.
> Since there is no moral truth-values, no culture's morality (moral progress)
> could be uniquely privileged over another's. Beliefs about *real* moral
> progress would seem to be a kind of modern *mythology*. What is this
> *essential* (intrinsic) dignity in humans that humanism asserts and how is
> that 'intrinsic nature' compatible with philosophical materialism if there
> is no evidence for such a function? I don't see the compatibility. I believe
> in that dignity humans to human rights but I have no rational argument for
> doing so. Declaration for human rights are synonymous with religious creeds
> in that both assert something to be true for which they have no rational
> evidence for. It seems a bit queer to see a self-proclaimed materialist
> ridiculing someone for having non-materialistic, metaphysical beleifs but
> then go on to argue as though he has knowledge of some moral truth/realism
> actually existing.
Moral progress can occur if morality is relative. I can measure it
relative to my deepest moral commitments. I can say, for example, that
Australian society is better now than it was when aboriginals were
routinely murdered as "vermin". I can say that my country is morally
worse than it was when it freely gave refuge to political refugees.
These evaluations are relative to a set of values I (and many in my
community) hold, but that does not prohibit my (or our) using them to
make judgements. As Putnam said, "I should use somebody *else's*
values?"
>
> (When I first started reading t.o. the amount of religious tolerance was
> refreshing to someone like myself who is both an evolutionist and
> religious. <sigh> I guess things evolve, even ngs. Now with all the
> anti-religious rhetoric that shows up in here I don't know how the main
> contributors of this ng can hope to have influence on state legislatures
> against teaching creationism in science class. At one time that rhetoric
> seem to be discouraged
> http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Anti-Religious%20Bigotry%20&safe=imag
> es&ie=UTF-8&as_ugroup=talk.origins&lr=&hl=en )
Different people have different approaches. There used to be a fellow
who was very abusive to any religious believer here. I, on the other
hand, am maximally tolerant of any religion that does not involve
imposing their values upon me, or making my secular society conform to
their sacred values. This is because I don't think that I know any
better than they what is the case outside the empirical world. And also
because I keep meeting these unreasonably reasonable believers who
undercut my innate prejudices. So take people as you find them. It
doesn't affect the point that good religion ought not to oppose good
science.
>
>
> > Is it any less morality for that? Is there a reason why moral judgments
> > cannot bemade and enforced by those who do not think it is a matter of
> > the fundamental furniture of the universe?
>
> No. But what are the morals and what are the judgments, and are cultures'
> moralities relatively equivalent? Is the morality of Islamic fundamentalists
> less moral than another culture's? No, not in any factual sense if there is
> no truth-values in moral statements. It's only a difference in preferences
> where cultures might attempt to influence the other's preferences - the
> other's value system.
Descriptively, the way a sociologist or anthropologist would approach
it, the moral values of another culture are neither worse nor better;
they just are, and to understand that culture you need to understand how
those values play out, and so on.
But as a moral agent, I can then take a stance WRT those values. I find,
for example, the intolerance of theocratic societies to those who they
view as infidels morally repugnant. But I won't demonise the society if
I know that all societies have a similar underlying dynamic.
>
>
> > In short, why should values have to be properties of the universe?
>
> They don't have to be. But if materialists' moral arguments imply a moral
> realism and MR is not a property of the universe......
Not necessarily. Most of the time people are either arguing (as
materialists) that by the lights of their opponents X is more moral (an
ad hominem argument - but not a fallacy), or they are saying that they
find X repugnant (as I do with the theocrats) and rhetorically expect
that a lot of others will too. I don't recall someone arguing, as an
ethical naturalist or physicalist, that their morality is objective.
>
>
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers "evil" to
> > > > have some sort of cosmological being, a part of the furniture of the
> > > > universe the way people sometimes spoke (or still speak) of
> > > > "darkness" or "coldness" as an actual substance rather than a
> > > > material property. "And Yahweh separated the light from the
> > > > darkness", anyone?
> > > > In this sense I deny the existence of evil, and I would have to
> > > > say that that would be part and parcel of my materialism. Tilting
> > > > Quinian, there is no value of any variable that answers to that
> > > > description.
> > >
> > > Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
> > >
> > Beholder*s*, plural. You have to have a community for it to be a moral
> > issue; otherwise it's just aesthetics.
>
> Yes, but is a moral reformer culturally unethical and merely being
> aesthetical? IOW was Schindler's act immoral? He was by Nazi standards.
<Max Smart>
The old Nazi Objection. Third time I've heard that this week :-)
</Max Smart>
Nazis were regarded as immoral even among their own society; the
"defence" given was that immoral acts were justified by a higher end
(and we can put up with the present immorality in order to achieve a
more moral state, etc.). In short, it was an ad hoc justification.
Moral reformers are reformers if they are plugging into deeply held
values shared by those they seek to reform. Gandhi, for example, played
on the moral values of the British that were being overlooked or ignored
in Empire. But if nobody shares the values that the erstwhile reformer
appeals to, and no values the community members do hold makes the reform
more "valuable", then can we call them a moral reformer at all? Are they
not just morally divergent? Suppose Nietzsche did hold the Nazi morality
he is sometimes accused of - would we call him a moral reformer, or a
monster?
Matt Silberstein
Wilkins) wrote:
[snip]
>Moral progress can occur if morality is relative. I can measure it
>relative to my deepest moral commitments. I can say, for example, that
>Australian society is better now than it was when aboriginals were
>routinely murdered as "vermin". I can say that my country is morally
>worse than it was when it freely gave refuge to political refugees.
>These evaluations are relative to a set of values I (and many in my
>community) hold, but that does not prohibit my (or our) using them to
>make judgements. As Putnam said, "I should use somebody *else's*
>values?"
I prefer Shaw's version, through the mouth of the Maid of Orleans
CAUCHON. And you, and not the Church, are to be the judge?
JOAN. What other judgment can I judge by but my own?
_Saint Joan_ by GBS, Scene VI
[snip]
--
Matt Silberstein
Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball
Damien Rice
Walter Bushell
john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
If the Nazis had won, he would have been a reformer.
Scott
In observing the history of human specie's behavior we see where one culture
invades, concures, and genocides another in order to take the other's land
and resourses. That much is objective were no values have been assigned. The
concured will likely rationalize (value) and justify the act as evil where
the victors will likely rationalize (value) and justify it as relatively
good. There is nothing there to determine which value is the correct one for
the human specie so I don't know how *real* moral progress can be attained
without some objective valuation.
It comes across to me as yet another mythology if progress isn't relative to
some thing objective. Unlike, say, the speed of light there are no constants
in moral relativism. The only argument I can see for moral progress is
normative within a culture. A culture can objectify a goal and then work to
meet it. But which culture's? Islamic or Western to contrast? Westerner's
argue to some truth in the dignity of human rights but we have no rational
argument for those rights, hence the *Declarations* for a truth to those
rights. How is one culture's imposition of its human rights factually (or
relatively) any different than another culture's imposition of its theocracy
onto another? If tolerance, for example, were used as a standard then
tolerance would be an objective moral principle by which cultures'
moralities are to be relative to.
I can measure it
> relative to my deepest moral commitments. I can say, for example, that
> Australian society is better now than it was when aboriginals were
> routinely murdered as "vermin". I can say that my country is morally
> worse than it was when it freely gave refuge to political refugees.
Isn't this an arguing from the POV moral subjectivism since it seem to be
relative to you and not necessarily to that of the culture?
If Australian society of the 1800's routinely killed aboriginals, was it not
then morally acceptable to do so within that *previous* culture? What I can
see is a change in preferences but I can't rationally call that progress
without having an objective standard independent of cultural mores. To use
an example without so much emotional *baggage*: If a society changes its
music preferences from country to rock to rap, is that society making
musical progress? I only see a change in preferences.
> These evaluations are relative to a set of values I (and many in my
> community) hold, but that does not prohibit my (or our) using them to
> make judgements. As Putnam said, "I should use somebody *else's*
> values?"
So moral progress is relative to you and not to a culture's mores?
That's how it was presented to me in sociology.
>
> But as a moral agent, I can then take a stance WRT those values. I find,
> for example, the intolerance of theocratic societies to those who they
> view as infidels morally repugnant. But I won't demonise the society if
> I know that all societies have a similar underlying dynamic.
I think we do have a "similar underlying dynamic"; We all want the other to
adopt our morality without having a rational grounding for the other in
doing so.
> >
> >
> > > In short, why should values have to be properties of the universe?
> >
> > They don't have to be. But if materialists' moral arguments imply a
moral
> > realism and MR is not a property of the universe......
>
> Not necessarily. Most of the time people are either arguing (as
> materialists) that by the lights of their opponents X is more moral (an
> ad hominem argument - but not a fallacy),
<hmm> Can you have a fallacy in moral statments if those statements have no
truth-value?
or they are saying that they
> find X repugnant (as I do with the theocrats) and rhetorically expect
> that a lot of others will too. I don't recall someone arguing, as an
> ethical naturalist or physicalist, that their morality is objective.
well I know this Phd. physicist-atheist in a.r.c.r-c......
Doesn't that depend on how "society" is defined? Nazi society was a culture
to itself.
>
> Moral reformers are reformers if they are plugging into deeply held
> values shared by those they seek to reform. Gandhi, for example, played
> on the moral values of the British that were being overlooked or ignored
> in Empire.
Ok. I haven't seen it put this way.
But if nobody shares the values that the erstwhile reformer
> appeals to, and no values the community members do hold makes the reform
> more "valuable", then can we call them a moral reformer at all?
Then Osama is a moral reformer.
Are they
> not just morally divergent? Suppose Nietzsche did hold the Nazi morality
> he is sometimes accused of - would we call him a moral reformer, or a
> monster?
It would seem to be relative to the cultural POV in question. *We* would
likely call Nietzsche, like Osama, a monster but we aren't of that culture.
Our opinions, though, would have no more truth-value than the other's, would
it not, since our perspective isn't uniquely privileged over any other?
Scott
Mark Isaak
wrote:
>In observing the history of human specie's behavior we see where one culture
>invades, concures, and genocides another in order to take the other's land
>and resourses. That much is objective were no values have been assigned. The
>concured will likely rationalize (value) and justify the act as evil where
>the victors will likely rationalize (value) and justify it as relatively
>good.
One Native American mythology (among the Plains Indians, IIRC) that
resulted from their being conquered is the Ghost Dance. I remember
very little about this ceremony, but as I recall, considering the
victors evil is not part of it. When you see a culture considered
evil in myth, that culture is likely to be a competing contemporary
culture roughly as powerful as the one making the myth.
John Wilkins
manually reformat your posts - it's annoying.
Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
Species is the singular and the plural. Specie is a coinage.
I am finding this a hard paragraph to follow. I think you mean
"conquered".
There does not have to be *one* correct value for the human species.
Biologically, we are capable of a range of values and moral systems.
They tend to cluster about a mode, but there is no biological necessity
for us to adopt any given value as "the" best one for us, biologically
speaking.
So further discrimination or differentiation of moral systems must be
made culturally. For example, humans who routinely kill their own
children will not be represented in many subsequent generations, so if a
genetic disposition to do this were to arise, biological necessity would
shortly thereafter eliminate it or at least reduce it to some small
frequency. But smacking children or not in a reward/punishment process
is a cultural value.
Now moral progress is always assessed in terms of the distance from a
goal, but there is no conceptual requirement that the goal has to be
objective or absolute or both together. It can be objective (in the
sense that it is a fact that the culture holds that value, for example,
the care of children's physical wellbeing) but not absolute (it may be
there are cultures that do not hold this value). So I don't see why I am
prohibited from making a moral valuation of progress if I also happen to
recognise that my values are culturally, and species, relative.
No, tolerance would be an inter-cultural standard, but it need not be
objective in the sense that it exists independently of the views of that
collection of cultures. Also, it pays to recall that even *within* some
putative culture, it is not a monolithic group of homogenous values.
There are cultures within cultures, so the problem arises at every
scale.
>
>
> > I can measure it
> > relative to my deepest moral commitments. I can say, for example, that
> > Australian society is better now than it was when aboriginals were
> > routinely murdered as "vermin". I can say that my country is morally
> > worse than it was when it freely gave refuge to political refugees.
>
> Isn't this an arguing from the POV moral subjectivism since it seem to be
> relative to you and not necessarily to that of the culture?
I think see your problem - you think "relative" = "subjective". But it
doesn't. It is not a subjective value that killing people is wrong in my
culture - you are not free to accept this or not as you please, or to
justify it on the grounds that it "feels right" or not. Even if only my
culture thinks killing indigenes is morally wrong (which makes it
culturally relative), it is not a subjective value. At the least it is
*inter*subjective, which is to say, a property of the values of the
group, not the individual.
It may help to remember that the antonym of relative is absolute, and of
subjective is objective. And these are at right angles to each other,
conceptually. You can have an absolute subjectivity. You can have an
objective relativity.
>
> If Australian society of the 1800's routinely killed aboriginals, was it
> not then morally acceptable to do so within that *previous* culture? What
> I can see is a change in preferences but I can't rationally call that
> progress without having an objective standard independent of cultural
> mores. To use an example without so much emotional *baggage*: If a society
> changes its music preferences from country to rock to rap, is that society
> making musical progress? I only see a change in preferences.
If, in the 1800s it was considered acceptable in English society to kill
aborigines, then we must of course not judge someone's actions *in that
context* as being bad when in that time they were good (in fact, it
wasn't - those who murdered aborigines went to some trouble to hide the
fact, or to justify it as "self-defence" when it clearly wasn't). But I
assess their choices in their own terms - so far as I am concerned as a
member of *my* society, I must assess the actions as bad, and consider
it progress that we have stopped doing it.
There is the historian's problem of not being Whiggish, and then there
is the moral agent's problem of assessing actions according to thir
*own* lights. One can be a non-whiggish historian (or a non-prejudicial
anthropologist for other contemporary cultures) and still think that,
e.g., a given period or culture is morally less advanced.
>
>
> > These evaluations are relative to a set of values I (and many in my
> > community) hold, but that does not prohibit my (or our) using them to
> > make judgements. As Putnam said, "I should use somebody *else's*
> > values?"
>
> So moral progress is relative to you and not to a culture's mores?
I am a member of my society. I gain most of my values from my society. I
judge by those. But moral progress doesn't imply absolute progress - I
think that the notion is barely comprehensible.
...
> > >
> > > > Is it any less morality for that? Is there a reason why moral
> > > > judgments cannot bemade and enforced by those who do not think it is
> > > > a matter of the fundamental furniture of the universe?
> > >
> > > No. But what are the morals and what are the judgments, and are
> > > cultures' moralities relatively equivalent? Is the morality of Islamic
> > > fundamentalists less moral than another culture's? No, not in any
> > > factual sense if there is no truth-values in moral statements. It's
> > > only a difference in preferences where cultures might attempt to
> > > influence the other's preferences - the other's value system.
> >
> > Descriptively, the way a sociologist or anthropologist would approach
> > it, the moral values of another culture are neither worse nor better;
> > they just are, and to understand that culture you need to understand how
> > those values play out, and so on.
>
> That's how it was presented to me in sociology.
Good. Then you understand *cultural* relativity. Can you now see how
that does not entail *ethical* relativity in one's own judgements?
>
>
> >
> > But as a moral agent, I can then take a stance WRT those values. I find,
> > for example, the intolerance of theocratic societies to those who they
> > view as infidels morally repugnant. But I won't demonise the society if
> > I know that all societies have a similar underlying dynamic.
>
> I think we do have a "similar underlying dynamic"; We all want the other
> to adopt our morality without having a rational grounding for the other in
> doing so.
The notion of "rational grounding" itself is often treated as culturally
relative. I think that values are not adopted for reasons, but from
one's surrounding society as one grows up. In short, they are inherited,
like cultural genes.
>
>
> > >
> > >
> > > > In short, why should values have to be properties of the universe?
> > >
> > > They don't have to be. But if materialists' moral arguments imply a
> > > moral realism and MR is not a property of the universe......
> >
> > Not necessarily. Most of the time people are either arguing (as
> > materialists) that by the lights of their opponents X is more moral (an
> > ad hominem argument - but not a fallacy),
>
> <hmm> Can you have a fallacy in moral statments if those statements have
> no truth-value?
The truth value is assigned in terms of the premises and conclusion
(whether they denote any non-conceptual aspects of the universe doesn't
matter). It's a fallacy of logic if the truth of the premises does not
force the truth of the conclusion, and so on, in virtue of the logical
form of the argument.
>
>
> > or they are saying that they
> > find X repugnant (as I do with the theocrats) and rhetorically expect
> > that a lot of others will too. I don't recall someone arguing, as an
> > ethical naturalist or physicalist, that their morality is objective.
>
>
> well I know this Phd. physicist-atheist in a.r.c.r-c......
Oh, well, *Usenet*. You can find anything on Usenet.
>
>
> > >
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Well, a charitable reading might be that he considers
> > > > > > "evil" to have some sort of cosmological being, a part of the
> > > > > > furniture of the universe the way people sometimes spoke (or
> > > > > > still speak) of "darkness" or "coldness" as an actual substance
> > > > > > rather than a material property. "And Yahweh separated the light
> > > > > > from the darkness", anyone? In this sense I deny the existence
> > > > > > of evil, and I would have to say that that would be part and
> > > > > > parcel of my materialism. Tilting Quinian, there is no value of
> > > > > > any variable that answers to that description.
> > > > >
> > > > > Evil, like beauty, is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
> > > > >
> > > > Beholder*s*, plural. You have to have a community for it to be a
> > > > moral issue; otherwise it's just aesthetics.
> > >
> > > Yes, but is a moral reformer culturally unethical and merely being
> > > aesthetical? IOW was Schindler's act immoral? He was by Nazi standards.
> >
> > <Max Smart>
> > The old Nazi Objection. Third time I've heard that this week :-)
> > </Max Smart>
> >
> > Nazis were regarded as immoral even among their own society; the
> > "defence" given was that immoral acts were justified by a higher end
> > (and we can put up with the present immorality in order to achieve a
> > more moral state, etc.). In short, it was an ad hoc justification.
>
> Doesn't that depend on how "society" is defined? Nazi society was a
> culture to itself.
Oh, hardly. it was part of German culture, European culture, the
Christian and Enlightenment traditions, and so on. It was hardly a
hermeneutically sealed and isolated culture.
>
>
> >
> > Moral reformers are reformers if they are plugging into deeply held
> > values shared by those they seek to reform. Gandhi, for example, played
> > on the moral values of the British that were being overlooked or ignored
> > in Empire.
>
> Ok. I haven't seen it put this way.
>
> > But if nobody shares the values that the erstwhile reformer appeals to,
> > and no values the community members do hold makes the reform more
> > "valuable", then can we call them a moral reformer at all?
>
> Then Osama is a moral reformer.
Under Islamist cultural assumptions, yes he is (which is why he is so
well regarded in those circles). Of course, under more general Muslim
cultural assumptions, he is a dangerous fanatic, and one who many think
will bring trouble on that broader culture.
>
> > Are they not just morally divergent? Suppose Nietzsche did hold the Nazi
> > morality he is sometimes accused of - would we call him a moral
> > reformer, or a monster?
>
> It would seem to be relative to the cultural POV in question. *We* would
> likely call Nietzsche, like Osama, a monster but we aren't of that
> culture. Our opinions, though, would have no more truth-value than the
> other's, would it not, since our perspective isn't uniquely privileged
> over any other?
They would in our society, though. You seem to want a God's eye view,
not only of truth, but of value. The universe, it seems to me, isn't
built that way...
>
> Scott
Scott
> Scott can you set your wraparound to 75 characters, please? I have to
> manually reformat your posts - it's annoying.
I changed it from 76 to 75. Let me if this helps.
Sorry about the delay. I was out of town for the weekend.
Yes. I try.
>
> There does not have to be *one* correct value for the human species.
> Biologically, we are capable of a range of values and moral systems.
> They tend to cluster about a mode, but there is no biological necessity
> for us to adopt any given value as "the" best one for us, biologically
> speaking.
Yes. That's my understanding
>
> So further discrimination or differentiation of moral systems must be
> made culturally. For example, humans who routinely kill their own
> children will not be represented in many subsequent generations, so if a
> genetic disposition to do this were to arise, biological necessity would
> shortly thereafter eliminate it or at least reduce it to some small
> frequency. But smacking children or not in a reward/punishment process
> is a cultural value.
Agree.
>
> Now moral progress is always assessed in terms of the distance from a
> goal,
I can see that within a defined culture. For me a culture's moral goal is
akin to the mission statement of an organization. But when there is
comparison between two diverse organizations, I can't see how one can claim
to be more progressive if they don't share the same goal. In this sense,
Western morality can't be said to be more progressive than the Isalamic
cultures of, say, Iran or the Sudan.
but there is no conceptual requirement that the goal has to be
> objective or absolute or both together. It can be objective (in the
> sense that it is a fact that the culture holds that value, for example,
> the care of children's physical wellbeing) but not absolute (it may be
> there are cultures that do not hold this value). So I don't see why I am
> prohibited from making a moral valuation of progress if I also happen to
> recognise that my values are culturally, and species, relative.
Yes. That's what I meant by being able to see progress within a culture.
I have a bit of a problem with the defining of "culture" or "society". When
does one culture/society *evolve* into a new culture/society, a different
culture? The cultural values of medieval Europe's Inquisition are not the
values of today's Europe. I would say they are two separate cultures akin
to two separate specie. As in evolution, we might say nature progressed
from single celled organisms to multi-celled, complexification. But that's
more akin to *change* where value judgements aren't assigned. Most people
it seems to me, think of moral progress anthroporcentricly (if I can use
that term for this) as though there is a cultural, evolutionary arrow to
both culture and moral progress. In such a fram of reference, correct
morality is to be discoverd. I don't think there is a rational argument for
that.
yes.
> >
> >
> > > I can measure it
> > > relative to my deepest moral commitments. I can say, for example,
that
> > > Australian society is better now than it was when aboriginals were
> > > routinely murdered as "vermin". I can say that my country is morally
> > > worse than it was when it freely gave refuge to political refugees.
> >
> > Isn't this an arguing from the POV moral subjectivism since it seem to
be
> > relative to you and not necessarily to that of the culture?
>
> I think see your problem - you think "relative" = "subjective".
Not exactly.
But it
> doesn't. It is not a subjective value that killing people is wrong in my
> culture - you are not free to accept this or not as you please, or to
> justify it on the grounds that it "feels right" or not.
And that's the problem I have with Subjectivism. A sociopath may not think
his actions are immoral (relative to him they aren't) but within the
culture he finds himself his actions are still going to get him jail time.
I've found a number of people, though, who rejected cultural relativism in
favor of subjectivism due their negative feels towards punitive cultures.
They think their subjectivism is better than that of the intersubjectivism
relative to a punitive culture.
Even if only my
> culture thinks killing indigenes is morally wrong (which makes it
> culturally relative), it is not a subjective value. At the least it is
> *inter*subjective, which is to say, a property of the values of the
> group, not the individual.
agree.
>
> It may help to remember that the antonym of relative is absolute, and of
> subjective is objective. And these are at right angles to each other,
> conceptually. You can have an absolute subjectivity. You can have an
> objective relativity.
I would say a law would be such an objective relativity. But that begs a
question, is there anything as an unjust law within a cutlure? (Or an
unjust war?) For example, were/are the laws of medieval Europe or that of
Islamic Law unjust? Relative to us they are but we are a different culture.
If stoning for adultery and cutting off hands and feet for theft is just in
Islamic cultures, what does relativism say for philosophical humanism?
> >
> > If Australian society of the 1800's routinely killed aboriginals, was
it
> > not then morally acceptable to do so within that *previous* culture?
What
> > I can see is a change in preferences but I can't rationally call that
> > progress without having an objective standard independent of cultural
> > mores. To use an example without so much emotional *baggage*: If a
society
> > changes its music preferences from country to rock to rap, is that
society
> > making musical progress? I only see a change in preferences.
>
> If, in the 1800s it was considered acceptable in English society to kill
> aborigines, then we must of course not judge someone's actions *in that
> context* as being bad when in that time they were good (in fact, it
> wasn't - those who murdered aborigines went to some trouble to hide the
> fact, or to justify it as "self-defence" when it clearly wasn't). But I
> assess their choices in their own terms - so far as I am concerned as a
> member of *my* society, I must assess the actions as bad, and consider
> it progress that we have stopped doing it.
>
> There is the historian's problem of not being Whiggish, and then there
> is the moral agent's problem of assessing actions according to thir
> *own* lights. One can be a non-whiggish historian (or a non-prejudicial
> anthropologist for other contemporary cultures) and still think that,
> e.g., a given period or culture is morally less advanced.
I don't know what they would base that "less advanced" on except their own
intuition or prejudice.
> >
> >
> > > These evaluations are relative to a set of values I (and many in my
> > > community) hold, but that does not prohibit my (or our) using them to
> > > make judgements. As Putnam said, "I should use somebody *else's*
> > > values?"
> >
> > So moral progress is relative to you and not to a culture's mores?
>
> I am a member of my society. I gain most of my values from my society. I
> judge by those. But moral progress doesn't imply absolute progress - I
> think that the notion is barely comprehensible.
Yes. Those who believe in such a progress, I think, have only a claim to
intuitionism to rely upon.
> ...
> > > >
> > > > > Is it any less morality for that? Is there a reason why moral
> > > > > judgments cannot bemade and enforced by those who do not think it
is
> > > > > a matter of the fundamental furniture of the universe?
> > > >
> > > > No. But what are the morals and what are the judgments, and are
> > > > cultures' moralities relatively equivalent? Is the morality of
Islamic
> > > > fundamentalists less moral than another culture's? No, not in any
> > > > factual sense if there is no truth-values in moral statements. It's
> > > > only a difference in preferences where cultures might attempt to
> > > > influence the other's preferences - the other's value system.
> > >
> > > Descriptively, the way a sociologist or anthropologist would approach
> > > it, the moral values of another culture are neither worse nor better;
> > > they just are, and to understand that culture you need to understand
how
> > > those values play out, and so on.
> >
> > That's how it was presented to me in sociology.
>
> Good. Then you understand *cultural* relativity. Can you now see how
> that does not entail *ethical* relativity in one's own judgements?
Yes. As I said, I don't give much to Subjectivism but I've seen a lot of
people who post into a.r.c.r-c that stubbornly do. It's like saying they
have their own mores apart from their society.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > But as a moral agent, I can then take a stance WRT those values. I
find,
> > > for example, the intolerance of theocratic societies to those who
they
> > > view as infidels morally repugnant. But I won't demonise the society
if
> > > I know that all societies have a similar underlying dynamic.
> >
> > I think we do have a "similar underlying dynamic"; We all want the
other
> > to adopt our morality without having a rational grounding for the other
in
> > doing so.
>
> The notion of "rational grounding" itself is often treated as culturally
> relative.
Going back to philosophical humanism, I don't think the humanistic agents
see themselves as being cultrally relative but behave as though they were
progressing an inherent moral truth.
I think that values are not adopted for reasons, but from
> one's surrounding society as one grows up. In short, they are inherited,
> like cultural genes.
<memes>
> >
> >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > In short, why should values have to be properties of the
universe?
> > > >
> > > > They don't have to be. But if materialists' moral arguments imply a
> > > > moral realism and MR is not a property of the universe......
> > >
> > > Not necessarily. Most of the time people are either arguing (as
> > > materialists) that by the lights of their opponents X is more moral
(an
> > > ad hominem argument - but not a fallacy),
> >
> > <hmm> Can you have a fallacy in moral statments if those statements
have
> > no truth-value?
>
> The truth value is assigned in terms of the premises and conclusion
> (whether they denote any non-conceptual aspects of the universe doesn't
> matter). It's a fallacy of logic if the truth of the premises does not
> force the truth of the conclusion, and so on, in virtue of the logical
> form of the argument.
thank you
> >
> >
> > > or they are saying that they
> > > find X repugnant (as I do with the theocrats) and rhetorically expect
> > > that a lot of others will too. I don't recall someone arguing, as an
> > > ethical naturalist or physicalist, that their morality is objective.
> >
> >
> > well I know this Phd. physicist-atheist in a.r.c.r-c......
>
> Oh, well, *Usenet*. You can find anything on Usenet.
;-)
I can see how the different moralities can be described but I can't see how
to tease out the *correct* one. I'm simply being prejudiced in my opinion.
No. I simply saying that if cultural relativism is correct then something
like humanism yet another mythology
Scott
Scott
"Mark Isaak" <eci...@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote in message
> On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:16:10 +0000 (UTC), "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net>
> wrote:
>
> >In observing the history of human specie's behavior we see where one
culture
> >invades, concures, and genocides another in order to take the other's
land
> >and resourses. That much is objective were no values have been assigned.
The
> >concured will likely rationalize (value) and justify the act as evil
where
> >the victors will likely rationalize (value) and justify it as relatively
> >good.
>
> One Native American mythology (among the Plains Indians, IIRC) that
> resulted from their being conquered is the Ghost Dance.
Lakota. But you're mistaken. The Ghost Dance didn't result in their be
conquered. The Ghost Dance came about because they were conqured and moved
onto the reservation at Wonded Knee.
It's been a while since I read it but you might like this book if you
haven't read it.
http://www.blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/
http://www.blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/index2.htm
I remember
> very little about this ceremony, but as I recall, considering the
> victors evil is not part of it.
The purpose of the dance IIRC was to make the white man disappear from the
earth.
When you see a culture considered
> evil in myth, that culture is likely to be a competing contemporary
> culture roughly as powerful as the one making the myth.
Scott
John Wilkins
> "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> news:1gl0wlr.1jdyzip1or20r1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
...
> > Now moral progress is always assessed in terms of the distance from a
> > goal,
>
> I can see that within a defined culture. For me a culture's moral goal is
> akin to the mission statement of an organization. But when there is
> comparison between two diverse organizations, I can't see how one can
> claim to be more progressive if they don't share the same goal. In this
> sense, Western morality can't be said to be more progressive than the
> Isalamic cultures of, say, Iran or the Sudan.
Think of it like this - a claim of progress is always indexed relative
to some standard. It doesn't matter if the standard is absolute or not.
I can say "Western society has made moral progress[humanist]", and
Islamists can say "Muslim society has made moral progress[Sharia]". We
are, of course, both correct depending on the historical facts and value
systems. As I am a Westerner, I consider that western society made some
moral progress[humanist] from the period between 1600 (say) and 1980. I
suspect I would not say there has been all that much since the
Reagan-Thatcher years in the English-speaking world.
>
> > but there is no conceptual requirement that the goal has to be
> > objective or absolute or both together. It can be objective (in the
> > sense that it is a fact that the culture holds that value, for example,
> > the care of children's physical wellbeing) but not absolute (it may be
> > there are cultures that do not hold this value). So I don't see why I am
> > prohibited from making a moral valuation of progress if I also happen to
> > recognise that my values are culturally, and species, relative.
>
> Yes. That's what I meant by being able to see progress within a culture.
>
> I have a bit of a problem with the defining of "culture" or "society".
> When does one culture/society *evolve* into a new culture/society, a
> different culture? The cultural values of medieval Europe's Inquisition
> are not the values of today's Europe. I would say they are two separate
> cultures akin to two separate specie. As in evolution, we might say nature
> progressed from single celled organisms to multi-celled, complexification.
> But that's more akin to *change* where value judgements aren't assigned.
> Most people it seems to me, think of moral progress anthroporcentricly (if
> I can use that term for this) as though there is a cultural, evolutionary
> arrow to both culture and moral progress. In such a fram of reference,
> correct morality is to be discoverd. I don't think there is a rational
> argument for that.
You cannot say there is absolute progress in an evolutionary process
that is not either externally teleological or entelechical. Progressive
evolution is always relative to local conditions, actual variants, and
historical predecessors.
Hence if, as I do, you think culture is an evolutionary process, you
cannot draw any moral takehome conclusions from the simple fact of
evolutionary change.
...
> > > Isn't this an arguing from the POV moral subjectivism since it seem to
> > > be relative to you and not necessarily to that of the culture?
> >
> > I think see your problem - you think "relative" = "subjective".
>
> Not exactly.
>
> > But it doesn't. It is not a subjective value that killing people is
> > wrong in my culture - you are not free to accept this or not as you
> > please, or to justify it on the grounds that it "feels right" or not.
>
> And that's the problem I have with Subjectivism. A sociopath may not think
> his actions are immoral (relative to him they aren't) but within the
> culture he finds himself his actions are still going to get him jail time.
> I've found a number of people, though, who rejected cultural relativism in
> favor of subjectivism due their negative feels towards punitive cultures.
> They think their subjectivism is better than that of the intersubjectivism
> relative to a punitive culture.
Which is why I do not think moral judgments are in fact subjective.
Relativity is a hard perspective to maintain without falling into all
kinds of traps.
...
> >
> > It may help to remember that the antonym of relative is absolute, and of
> > subjective is objective. And these are at right angles to each other,
> > conceptually. You can have an absolute subjectivity. You can have an
> > objective relativity.
>
> I would say a law would be such an objective relativity. But that begs a
> question, is there anything as an unjust law within a cutlure? (Or an
> unjust war?) For example, were/are the laws of medieval Europe or that of
> Islamic Law unjust? Relative to us they are but we are a different
> culture. If stoning for adultery and cutting off hands and feet for theft
> is just in Islamic cultures, what does relativism say for philosophical
> humanism?
That it, too, lays claim to being the best approach for humans to live a
happy life. Whether or not it does will be seen by experience. As it
happens, I think it leads to a better society, so long as toleration is
practised by *everyone* in that society.
...
> >
> > The notion of "rational grounding" itself is often treated as culturally
> > relative.
>
> Going back to philosophical humanism, I don't think the humanistic agents
> see themselves as being cultrally relative but behave as though they were
> progressing an inherent moral truth.
Then I think they are confused.
...
> > > > <Max Smart>
> > > > The old Nazi Objection. Third time I've heard that this week :-)
> > > > </Max Smart>
> > > >
> > > > Nazis were regarded as immoral even among their own society; the
> > > > "defence" given was that immoral acts were justified by a higher end
> > > > (and we can put up with the present immorality in order to achieve a
> > > > more moral state, etc.). In short, it was an ad hoc justification.
> > >
> > > Doesn't that depend on how "society" is defined? Nazi society was a
> > > culture to itself.
> >
> > Oh, hardly. it was part of German culture, European culture, the
> > Christian and Enlightenment traditions, and so on. It was hardly a
> > hermeneutically sealed and isolated culture.
>
>
> I can see how the different moralities can be described but I can't see
> how to tease out the *correct* one. I'm simply being prejudiced in my
> opinion.
Different senses of "correct":
Morally correct
Most healthy
Optimises outcomes for the most individuals
The One True View
etc...
...
> >
> > You seem to want a God's eye view,
> > not only of truth, but of value. The universe, it seems to me, isn't
> > built that way...
>
> No. I simply saying that if cultural relativism is correct then something
> like humanism yet another mythology
Why must that which is a relative perspective be a mythology? Can it not
merely be a view that has advantages over another for some set of
values? Why must you use the loaded term "mythology"? I suspect you
think that there are such things as worldviews, too ;-)
Scott
> Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
>
> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:1gl0wlr.1jdyzip1or20r1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> ...
> > > Now moral progress is always assessed in terms of the distance from a
> > > goal,
> >
> > I can see that within a defined culture. For me a culture's moral goal
is
> > akin to the mission statement of an organization. But when there is
> > comparison between two diverse organizations, I can't see how one can
> > claim to be more progressive if they don't share the same goal. In this
> > sense, Western morality can't be said to be more progressive than the
> > Isalamic cultures of, say, Iran or the Sudan.
>
> Think of it like this - a claim of progress is always indexed relative
> to some standard. It doesn't matter if the standard is absolute or not.
> I can say "Western society has made moral progress[humanist]", and
> Islamists can say "Muslim society has made moral progress[Sharia]". We
> are, of course, both correct depending on the historical facts and value
> systems.
This looks like an argument I've made in other threads but not as well as
you've put it here. Rather than "both correct" I usually say that two
separate culture's moralities/mores are equivalent and it'd be a mistake to
say one is more progressive than another given the subjectivity in
morality. Each culture has its moral preferences that is correct for that
culture.
As I am a Westerner, I consider that western society made some
> moral progress[humanist] from the period between 1600 (say) and 1980. I
> suspect I would not say there has been all that much since the
> Reagan-Thatcher years in the English-speaking world.
"Western society" from 1600 to present seems too broad of a social
description for me since mores have changed so much since that time.
No, I don't there is.
Progressive
> evolution is always relative to local conditions, actual variants, and
> historical predecessors.
>
> Hence if, as I do, you think culture is an evolutionary process, you
> cannot draw any moral takehome conclusions from the simple fact of
> evolutionary change.
agree
>
> ...
> > > > Isn't this an arguing from the POV moral subjectivism since it seem
to
> > > > be relative to you and not necessarily to that of the culture?
> > >
> > > I think see your problem - you think "relative" = "subjective".
> >
> > Not exactly.
> >
> > > But it doesn't. It is not a subjective value that killing people is
> > > wrong in my culture - you are not free to accept this or not as you
> > > please, or to justify it on the grounds that it "feels right" or not.
> >
> > And that's the problem I have with Subjectivism. A sociopath may not
think
> > his actions are immoral (relative to him they aren't) but within the
> > culture he finds himself his actions are still going to get him jail
time.
> > I've found a number of people, though, who rejected cultural relativism
in
> > favor of subjectivism due their negative feels towards punitive
cultures.
> > They think their subjectivism is better than that of the
intersubjectivism
> > relative to a punitive culture.
>
> Which is why I do not think moral judgments are in fact subjective.
> Relativity is a hard perspective to maintain without falling into all
> kinds of traps.
Hmm. Interesting. I've always seen relativism referred to in relation to
subjective an not objective. For example:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/relativi.htm
<qutoe>
"Although there are many different kinds of relativism, they all have two
features in common.
1) They all assert that one thing (e.g. moral values, beauty, knowledge,
taste, or meaning) is relative to some particular framework or standpoint
(e.g. the individual subject, a culture, an era, a language, or a
conceptual scheme).
2) They all deny that any standpoint is uniquely privileged over all
others.
It is thus possible to classify the different types and sub-types of
relativism in a fairly obvious way. The main genera of relativism can be
distinguished according to the object they seek to relativize. Thus, forms
of moral relativism assert the relativity of moral values; forms of
epistemological relativism assert the relativity of knowledge. These genera
can then be broken down into distinct species by identifying the framework
to which the object in question is being relativized. For example, moral
subjectivism is that species of moral relativism that relativizes moral
value to the individual subject."
<end quote>
I can see morals being *objectified* but that still wouldn't make for moral
realism. Similarly, societies objectify their gods.
> ...
> > >
> > > It may help to remember that the antonym of relative is absolute, and
of
> > > subjective is objective. And these are at right angles to each other,
> > > conceptually. You can have an absolute subjectivity. You can have an
> > > objective relativity.
> >
> > I would say a law would be such an objective relativity. But that begs
a
> > question, is there anything as an unjust law within a cutlure? (Or an
> > unjust war?) For example, were/are the laws of medieval Europe or that
of
> > Islamic Law unjust? Relative to us they are but we are a different
> > culture. If stoning for adultery and cutting off hands and feet for
theft
> > is just in Islamic cultures, what does relativism say for philosophical
> > humanism?
>
> That it, too, lays claim to being the best approach for humans to live a
> happy life. Whether or not it does will be seen by experience. As it
> happens, I think it leads to a better society, so long as toleration is
> practised by *everyone* in that society.
I agree. I mean "why wouldn't a culture want humanism as the foundation of
its morality?" seems to be an obvious question for us to ask? Unfortunately
there are other societies who don't share that same belief. Humanism,
though, because it lays claims to being the *best* approach seems to impose
its mores onto these other cultures. For example, it's intolerant of
Iranian Sharia.
and including "might makes right"
> ...
> > >
> > > You seem to want a God's eye view,
> > > not only of truth, but of value. The universe, it seems to me, isn't
> > > built that way...
> >
> > No. I simply saying that if cultural relativism is correct then
something
> > like humanism yet another mythology
>
> Why must that which is a relative perspective be a mythology? Can it not
> merely be a view that has advantages over another for some set of
> values? Why must you use the loaded term "mythology"? I suspect you
> think that there are such things as worldviews, too ;-)
Because as you said above, humanism "lays claim to being the best approach
for humans to live a happy life." That's synonymous with saying it has a
universal truth for human morality. Yet two different cultures' mores, such
as American and Malaysian, are both the relatively correct one for the
cultures in question no matter how repulsed each is of the other's.
Scott
John Wilkins
Well, I was thinking of British, and in particular English society, but
of European mores in general. I studied English history in the 17thC at
Uni and the ways people behaved, particularly to those of low status,
was abysmal. Then you can look at the treatment of peasants by the
Reformers. Yes, I would call that progress.
Subjectivism is one expression of a kind of relativism. It is not
coterminous with it, as the remaining examples show.
> 2) They all deny that any standpoint is uniquely privileged over all
> others.
This too is not identical to subjectivism; viewpoints can be (unlike
subjective qualia) shared.
>
> It is thus possible to classify the different types and sub-types of
> relativism in a fairly obvious way. The main genera of relativism can be
> distinguished according to the object they seek to relativize. Thus, forms
> of moral relativism assert the relativity of moral values; forms of
> epistemological relativism assert the relativity of knowledge. These
> genera can then be broken down into distinct species by identifying the
> framework to which the object in question is being relativized. For
> example, moral subjectivism is that species of moral relativism that
> relativizes moral value to the individual subject."
Again, the subjectivism here is one kind of relativism, relative to the
individual subject.
Now, here's an "absolutist subjectivism" - solipsism.
>
> <end quote>
>
> I can see morals being *objectified* but that still wouldn't make for
> moral realism. Similarly, societies objectify their gods.
I agree, but that is a different topic.
>
> > ...
> > > >
> > > > It may help to remember that the antonym of relative is absolute,
> > > > and of subjective is objective. And these are at right angles to
> > > > each other, conceptually. You can have an absolute subjectivity. You
> > > > can have an objective relativity.
> > >
> > > I would say a law would be such an objective relativity. But that begs
> > > a question, is there anything as an unjust law within a cutlure? (Or
> > > an unjust war?) For example, were/are the laws of medieval Europe or
> > > that of Islamic Law unjust? Relative to us they are but we are a
> > > different culture. If stoning for adultery and cutting off hands and
> > > feet for theft is just in Islamic cultures, what does relativism say
> > > for philosophical humanism?
> >
> > That it, too, lays claim to being the best approach for humans to live a
> > happy life. Whether or not it does will be seen by experience. As it
> > happens, I think it leads to a better society, so long as toleration is
> > practised by *everyone* in that society.
>
>
> I agree. I mean "why wouldn't a culture want humanism as the foundation of
> its morality?" seems to be an obvious question for us to ask?
> Unfortunately there are other societies who don't share that same belief.
> Humanism, though, because it lays claims to being the *best* approach
> seems to impose its mores onto these other cultures. For example, it's
> intolerant of Iranian Sharia.
No, it isn't. A humanism is intolerant of the imposition of Sharia on
people who do not want it.
Yes, an old view dating back to the Divine Right of Kings. Sure...
>
> > ...
> > > >
> > > > You seem to want a God's eye view,
> > > > not only of truth, but of value. The universe, it seems to me, isn't
> > > > built that way...
> > >
> > > No. I simply saying that if cultural relativism is correct then
> > > something like humanism yet another mythology
> >
> > Why must that which is a relative perspective be a mythology? Can it not
> > merely be a view that has advantages over another for some set of
> > values? Why must you use the loaded term "mythology"? I suspect you
> > think that there are such things as worldviews, too ;-)
>
> Because as you said above, humanism "lays claim to being the best approach
> for humans to live a happy life." That's synonymous with saying it has a
> universal truth for human morality. Yet two different cultures' mores,
> such as American and Malaysian, are both the relatively correct one for
> the cultures in question no matter how repulsed each is of the other's.
My doctor tells me that the best way to cure my infection is to take
antibiotics (until that disease breeds a resistant strain). Is that
mythology? If not, why is a claim that the healthiest view of humans and
the world is humanism a mythology?
>
> Scott
Nick Keighley
> Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:1gl6c2m.k106ersxysbzN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > > Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
> > > > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > > > news:1gl0wlr.1jdyzip1or20r1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
<snip>
> > > > > You seem to want a God's eye view,
> > > > > not only of truth, but of value. The universe, it seems to me, isn't
> > > > > built that way...
> > > >
> > > > No. I simply saying that if cultural relativism is correct then
> > > > something like humanism yet another mythology
> > >
> > > Why must that which is a relative perspective be a mythology? Can it not
> > > merely be a view that has advantages over another for some set of
> > > values? Why must you use the loaded term "mythology"? I suspect you
> > > think that there are such things as worldviews, too ;-)
> >
> > Because as you said above, humanism "lays claim to being the best approach
> > for humans to live a happy life."
"lays claim..."
> > [...] That's synonymous with saying it has a
> > universal truth for human morality. Yet two different cultures' mores,
> > such as American and Malaysian, are both the relatively correct one for
> > the cultures in question no matter how repulsed each is of the other's.
>
> My doctor tells me that the best way to cure my infection is to take
> antibiotics (until that disease breeds a resistant strain). Is that
> mythology? If not, why is a claim that the healthiest view of humans and
> the world is humanism a mythology?
because ones an objective fact and the others a subjective opinion?
--
Nick Keighley
A Human Being
Its already there, but its only visible when one comes out from the
jungle of complex thoughts and arguments and counter arguments. It is
visible when thoughts are simple and mind is free to perceive it,not
when its overcrowded and overfilled with useless information and too
busy formulating an attack on an opponent or more correctly his/her
ideas.
> Why does not "intelligent design" rather support ideas like
> these:
Whatever we were designed to do is OK.
We can't know what the designers had in mind,
so we don't know what we're supposed to do.
etc.
It does. Thats whats happening.
Daniel Harper
<snip>
> Well, I was thinking of British, and in particular English society, but of
> European mores in general. I studied English history in the 17thC at Uni
> and the ways people behaved, particularly to those of low status, was
> abysmal. Then you can look at the treatment of peasants by the Reformers.
> Yes, I would call that progress.
So were you one of the reformers, or one of the conservatives?
<snip rest>
--
Romani Ite Domum
--Daniel Harper
(change terra to earth for email)
John Wilkins
> On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 05:22:24 +0000, John Wilkins wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Well, I was thinking of British, and in particular English society, but of
> > European mores in general. I studied English history in the 17thC at Uni
> > and the ways people behaved, particularly to those of low status, was
> > abysmal. Then you can look at the treatment of peasants by the Reformers.
> > Yes, I would call that progress.
>
> So were you one of the reformers, or one of the conservatives?
>
> <snip rest>
Both, at different times... in the late 17th century I was a reformer.
Louann Miller
Wilkins) wrote:
>> > Well, I was thinking of British, and in particular English society, but of
>> > European mores in general. I studied English history in the 17thC at Uni
>> > and the ways people behaved, particularly to those of low status, was
>> > abysmal. Then you can look at the treatment of peasants by the Reformers.
>> > Yes, I would call that progress.
>>
>> So were you one of the reformers, or one of the conservatives?
>>
>> <snip rest>
>
>Both, at different times... in the late 17th century I was a reformer.
Did I ever tell you how impressed I was with the spirit level? You're
very smart. Pity about the stone.
Daniel Harper
> Daniel Harper <daniel...@terralink.net> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 05:22:24 +0000, John Wilkins wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> > Well, I was thinking of British, and in particular English society,
>> > but of European mores in general. I studied English history in the
>> > 17thC at Uni and the ways people behaved, particularly to those of low
>> > status, was abysmal. Then you can look at the treatment of peasants by
>> > the Reformers. Yes, I would call that progress.
>>
>> So were you one of the reformers, or one of the conservatives?
>>
>> <snip rest>
>
> Both, at different times... in the late 17th century I was a reformer.
I think I read a bit about that a while back...
Richard Harter
<bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:55:19 +0000, DS wrote:
>
>> Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of Materialism
>> or Methodological Naturalism:
>>
>> Number 10: You enter and exit buildings through doorways instead of
>> teleporting in; and if you <i>open</i> a closed door instead of trying
>> to walk through it you're a super-duper double-duped materialist.
>
>Calls to mind last year's story about a ghost caught on a security camera,
>which came in through the door and politely closed it behind itself.
The thing that was remarkable about this case was not that the
security camera came through the door; rather it was that the camera
was polite.
Richard Harter
wrote:
[snip "you might be"]
May I reprint this (the ten indicators) on my website? Duly
attributed an all that of course.
John Wilkins
> john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote...
Assessed how? If we had strong empirical evidence that people lived
happier, longer and more healthy lives in humanist societies, would it
still be a mythology? What, exactly, do you *mean* here by "mythology"?
Nick Keighley
> Nick Keighley <nick.k...@marconi.com> wrote:
> > john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote...
> > > Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
> > > > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > > > news:1gl6c2m.k106ersxysbzN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > > > > Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
> > > > > > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > > > > > news:1gl0wlr.1jdyzip1or20r1N%john...@wilkins.id.au...
> > > > > > > You seem to want a God's eye view,
> > > > > > > not only of truth, but of value. The universe, it seems to me,
> > > > > > > isn't built that way...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > No. I simply saying that if cultural relativism is correct then
> > > > > > something like humanism yet another mythology
> > > > >
> > > > > Why must that which is a relative perspective be a mythology? Can it > > > > > not merely be a view that has advantages over another for some set of
> > > > > values? Why must you use the loaded term "mythology"? I suspect you
> > > > > think that there are such things as worldviews, too ;-)
> > > >
> > > > Because as you said above, humanism "lays claim to being the best
> > > > approach for humans to live a happy life."
> >
> > "lays claim..."
> >
> > > > [...] That's synonymous with saying it has a
> > > > universal truth for human morality. Yet two different cultures' mores,
> > > > such as American and Malaysian, are both the relatively correct one for
> > > > the cultures in question no matter how repulsed each is of the other's.
> > >
> > > My doctor tells me that the best way to cure my infection is to take
> > > antibiotics (until that disease breeds a resistant strain). Is that
> > > mythology? If not, why is a claim that the healthiest view of humans and
> > > the world is humanism a mythology?
> >
> > because ones an objective fact and the others a subjective opinion?
>
> Assessed how?
?
antibiotics have been tested over long periods of time by double blind
trials. Hell, if you accept anecdotal evidence then I have personnal
experience (last week actually) of antibiotics working.
> If we had strong empirical evidence that people lived
> happier, longer and more healthy lives in humanist societies, would it
> still be a mythology? What, exactly, do you *mean* here by "mythology"?
a few points
- I don't have a personnel antipathy towards humanism
- I didn't start using the term "mythology"
- I don't find "mythology" as pejorative a term as you seem to
you ask "If we had strong empirical evidence that people lived
happier, longer and more healthy lives in humanist societies..." but
that's rather the point, we *don't* have such evidence. Certainly not
on the level
of evidence of "the best way to cure my infection is to take
antibiotics".
I'm not actually arguing that a humanist society (whatever that is) is
in
some way a poor society, I'm just saying that no one has produced any
evidence that it's an unmitigated good.
Since, I'm sure, I'm about to be blown out of the water (probably with
a
bibleography), I'll attempt "mythology". How about "mythos", how about
"belief system" or even "world view"? [I know you have an issue "world
view" I just wondered what it was]
--
Nick Keighley
There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
Scott
reload it. I'm having to rebuild my hard drive.
"John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
news:1gl83i8.1nrzk7612ev88pN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
So would I but it can only be my opinion.
In most (I won't say "all") moral arguments where the person's statments
are that of (or imply a) moral realism, I can usually sub in some other
metaphysical, <ah> shall we say, quality.
I would think most humanists believe everyone what's, or would want,
humanism as their moral system.
Nick hit on this, when I say mythology I don't mean it in the usual sense
that myth equals falsehood. I mean it in a more general sense of mythos. So
in that sense, I don't have a problem saying my religion is my mythology.
Infections are physical realism where happiness is relative and I would say
subjective (The last freedom is choosing your attitude. -- Victor Frankel).
But....
Big question: What makes people happy and is happiness the measure of how
social mores should be guided? Who makes that happiness decision in the
society - the ACLU? Are Aboriginals happier in today's western society then
they were before westerners settled in Australia and brought them the
scientific western view that's counter to their Dream Time mythology?
Suppose we actually had strong empirical evidence that people lived much
happier and longer lives if they reject materialism for mythic dualism.
Would it then behoove humanism to promote dualism - to promote religious
beliefs? One of most congenial person I know is my nun cousin who does
social work in Nigeria. I see humanism as the new mythos kid on the block
attempting to be compatible with a view of nature that science has
brought.Western society has been perusing happiness for some time now....yet
so many of us seem to be obsessed over the stress we think this society has
brought.
Scott
John Wilkins
But if it turned out that a humanistic society *did* promote health,
rigorously tested, wouldn't it be an objective fact?
>
> > If we had strong empirical evidence that people lived
> > happier, longer and more healthy lives in humanist societies, would it
> > still be a mythology? What, exactly, do you *mean* here by "mythology"?
>
> a few points
>
> - I don't have a personnel antipathy towards humanism
> - I didn't start using the term "mythology"
> - I don't find "mythology" as pejorative a term as you seem to
>
> you ask "If we had strong empirical evidence that people lived happier,
> longer and more healthy lives in humanist societies..." but that's rather
> the point, we *don't* have such evidence. Certainly not on the level of
> evidence of "the best way to cure my infection is to take antibiotics".
> I'm not actually arguing that a humanist society (whatever that is) is
> in some way a poor society, I'm just saying that no one has produced any
> evidence that it's an unmitigated good.
Well, it is my understanding that there are differential rates of death
and illness that correlate with humanist values in a secularist society
and that overall, things are better when humanist values are in play,
but the sample size is small and this might just be a post hoc ergo
propter hoc error. Still, I think that science has improved social
conditions in an objective manner in ways that non-humanisms have not.
>
> Since, I'm sure, I'm about to be blown out of the water (probably with a
> bibleography), I'll attempt "mythology". How about "mythos", how about
> "belief system" or even "world view"? [I know you have an issue "world
> view" I just wondered what it was]
I have been defamed! As if *I* would provide a bibliography... the very
idea.
My objection to worldviews is that they simply don't exist. Instead
there are complexes of traditions that are dynamically intertwined, and
are rarely stable. Worldviews are reifications of a particular
formulation of these traditions at a point in time, and are then
projected over some Platonic heaven.
And I am still a fan of Bultmannian Entmythologisierungen...
John Wilkins
So for you a mythos is a kind of ruling set of ideas that specifies
baheviour? OK, then humanism is a mythos. So is common law, the rules of
baseball, and artistic principles among the impressionists.
I don't think that terms like "mythos" (and I understood the point from
the beginning) are helpful - it implies several things I think are
wrong. One is the idea that there *is* a mythos, or has to be, or that
it is a monolithic entity of ideas. Another is that we can measure
normalcy in a society from the deviation a "mythos" has from the modal
"mythos". I have elsewhere expressed my skepticism there is any such
beast as a "worldview"; and so on...
I was basing my suggestion that we could identify a better way of
structuring a society on the health of the members. That is not a
relativistic thing - it can be measured in terms of neonate survival,
median age of death, and other such measures. Happiness is getting to
the point where we know that it is an objective physical state (in terms
of endorphin release and so forth), and in any event we know that
happier individuals tend to be healthier, so ther eis a correlation
there, too. A society that is not rigidly hierarchical, for example,
will be healthier than one that is.
As this is thrown out as an overall measure of *social* health, there
will of course be subgroups who are not improving, realistically. But
note that most of the harm done to aboriginals was done under the
decidedly non-secular society of Christian imperial Britain, and most of
the improvements they have experienced are due to humanist values. They
have a *long* way to go, but the experience of indigenes in Canada shows
that they will do best when the federal government stops trying to be a
paternal overseer, and lets them manage their own affairs. And what do
we call a shift away from paternalism? Why, *I* call it a humanist
value.
I don't place all that much value on individual happiness - if that were
all that counted then the best society would be a society of wireheads,
as in Niven's novels - people who stimulated their pleasure centres
electrically all the time. But *health* is a relatively objective
measure, and happiness follows in its train.
Nick Keighley
<snip>
> I have been defamed! As if *I* would provide a bibliography... the very
> idea.
:-)
> My objection to worldviews is that they simply don't exist. Instead
> there are complexes of traditions that are dynamically intertwined, and
> are rarely stable. Worldviews are reifications of a particular
> formulation of these traditions at a point in time, and are then
> projected over some Platonic heaven.
almost sig material
> And I am still a fan of Bultmannian Entmythologisierungen...
didn't they gig in Southend a couple of years ago?
--
Nick Keighley
Scott
No. Rules are only be a part of it. Another would be to instill a sense of
inherent worth in life - a *spiritual* sense (not necessarily a belief in an
afterlife). Humanism claims an inherent dignity
http://www.humanistsofutah.org/what.html but nature in naturalism is amoral.
Mythology, I'd say, is the mental *filter* by which a person interprets the
world gives meaning to it and includes *how* to live their life within the
present social mores and view of nature. Why else is talk.origins so popular
on an emotional level?
As a counter example, the problem with creationists is that their mythology
doesn't fit what is now known about the natural world. So rather than
adopting their filter,. their mythology, they want to force a view of the
natural world to reflect it. To me they are an example of the difference
between a *living* and *dead* mythology. There's an emotional need to put
one's life in this accord and bring it meaning.
>OK, then humanism is a mythos.
I think it is, or is trying to be, because it claims to have a truth about
human dignity/value.....
So is common law, the rules of
> baseball, and artistic principles among the impressionists.
...where these do not. Unless maybe the common law claims to be in accord
with some natural law - claims to be a *just* law.
>
> I don't think that terms like "mythos" (and I understood the point from
> the beginning) are helpful - it implies several things I think are
> wrong. One is the idea that there *is* a mythos, or has to be, or that
> it is a monolithic entity of ideas. Another is that we can measure
> normalcy in a society from the deviation a "mythos" has from the modal
> "mythos". I have elsewhere expressed my skepticism there is any such
> beast as a "worldview"; and so on...
I thinks it's natural for humans to create (truth) myths - including
creating urban myths about politicians and political parties. There's no
shortage of political zealots. "Bush is an idiot" and "Bush is manipulating
the world oil prices to profit from the high prices since he doesn't think
he'll be re-elected." I've heard both those come out of the same mouth. I
haver doubts they can both be true at the same time ;).
Humans have been making mythology since before the cave of Lascaux. I don't
know why that'd be any different for us. Where still the same specie.
Scott
John Wilkins
> john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote...
>
> <snip>
>
> > I have been defamed! As if *I* would provide a bibliography... the very
> > idea.
>
> :-)
>
>
> > My objection to worldviews is that they simply don't exist. Instead
> > there are complexes of traditions that are dynamically intertwined, and
> > are rarely stable. Worldviews are reifications of a particular
> > formulation of these traditions at a point in time, and are then
> > projected over some Platonic heaven.
>
> almost sig material
I was as brief as I can be.
>
>
> > And I am still a fan of Bultmannian Entmythologisierungen...
>
> didn't they gig in Southend a couple of years ago?
That's the story, but I don't believe so. It's a myth.
John Wilkins
This talk of spiritualism is a kind of prejudgement. In a set of views
in which there is no such special category, which I hold, one can still
have values and dignity, but need no recourse to inherent worth to
achieve it. So when you define a set of ideas that lacks the category of
"spritual" in terms of that notion, you generate a chimera. A bit like
calling atheism a religion.
Incidentally, humanism was invented by Christians in the sixteenth
century, after the renaissance. Its most famous proponent was Erasmus of
Rotterdam, although I reckon Lorenzo Valla to be the type specimen.
Sartre famously wrote that "Existentialism is a humanism". There are a
*wide* range of ideas and attitudes under that label. It is rather hard
to lump them all together as if they formed a single tradition. The
movement called humanism in 1950s America was a particular kind, but
hardly the only kind. I know, or rather, knew, as I no longer move in
such circles, theologians of a wholly orthodox variety who called
themselves humanists, after Barth, Thielicke and Bonhoeffer.
And so I deny that anything that is a humanism must act as a worldview.
It is a stress on the importance of human beings, to the detriment of
the emphasis previously given to institutions and exogenous values.
>
> As a counter example, the problem with creationists is that their
> mythology doesn't fit what is now known about the natural world. So rather
> than adopting their filter,. their mythology, they want to force a view of
> the natural world to reflect it. To me they are an example of the
> difference between a *living* and *dead* mythology. There's an emotional
> need to put one's life in this accord and bring it meaning.
I think that any actively passed on tradition is live. The fact that a
tradition is unable to cope with the real world hardly makes it a dead
tradition - ignoring unpleasant facts is something that traditions do
really, really, well, particularly if they are religious.
>
>
> >OK, then humanism is a mythos.
>
> I think it is, or is trying to be, because it claims to have a truth about
> human dignity/value.....
>
> So is common law, the rules of
> > baseball, and artistic principles among the impressionists.
>
> ...where these do not. Unless maybe the common law claims to be in accord
> with some natural law - claims to be a *just* law.
Common law has a basic principle known as the Duty of Care, which is
*directly* related to human worth. Baseball is about achievement.
Impressionism is about the perceiver and how reality is processed from
impressions. All these things relate to human dignity and worth.
I think this is an artificial criterion, based on your emphasis on
religious views as the exemplar of worldviews.
>
>
> >
> > I don't think that terms like "mythos" (and I understood the point from
> > the beginning) are helpful - it implies several things I think are
> > wrong. One is the idea that there *is* a mythos, or has to be, or that
> > it is a monolithic entity of ideas. Another is that we can measure
> > normalcy in a society from the deviation a "mythos" has from the modal
> > "mythos". I have elsewhere expressed my skepticism there is any such
> > beast as a "worldview"; and so on...
>
>
> I thinks it's natural for humans to create (truth) myths - including
> creating urban myths about politicians and political parties. There's no
> shortage of political zealots. "Bush is an idiot" and "Bush is
> manipulating the world oil prices to profit from the high prices since he
> doesn't think he'll be re-elected." I've heard both those come out of the
> same mouth. I haver doubts they can both be true at the same time ;).
>
> Humans have been making mythology since before the cave of Lascaux. I
> don't know why that'd be any different for us. Where still the same
> specie.
You're doing that on purpose aren't you? "Species"! "Specie" is a kind
of coinage.
We do not know what Lascaux means; at best we can guess on the basis of
present day rationalisations for cave art (we do not know even when the
art is maintained by modern populations, as in the north west in
Australia). And the business about politics is just a red herring.
You are using a term in disparate contexts and on disparate cases and
then lumping them together disregardless. I think that is a bad way to
understand social and cultural change.
Scott
> Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
snipping
>> >
>> > So for you a mythos is a kind of ruling set of ideas that specifies
>> > baheviour?
>>
>> No. Rules are only be a part of it. Another would be to instill a sense
>> of
>> inherent worth in life - a *spiritual* sense (not necessarily a belief in
>> an afterlife). Humanism claims an inherent dignity
>> http://www.humanistsofutah.org/what.html but nature in naturalism is
>> amoral. Mythology, I'd say, is the mental *filter* by which a person
>> interprets the world gives meaning to it and includes *how* to live their
>> life within the present social mores and view of nature. Why else is
>> talk.origins so popular on an emotional level?
>
> This talk of spiritualism is a kind of prejudgement. In a set of views
> in which there is no such special category, which I hold, one can still
> have values and dignity, but need no recourse to inherent worth to
> achieve it. So when you define a set of ideas that lacks the category of
> "spritual" in terms of that notion, you generate a chimera. A bit like
> calling atheism a religion.
By spiritual sense in '*' I meant it more synonomus to "inviolable".
>
> Incidentally, humanism was invented by Christians in the sixteenth
> century, after the renaissance.
Yes. I can see that because it comes from the Christian sense of inherent
dignaty and <hmm> propped up by a philosophical belief in natural law.
Its most famous proponent was Erasmus of
> Rotterdam, although I reckon Lorenzo Valla to be the type specimen.
> Sartre famously wrote that "Existentialism is a humanism".
Doesn't existentialism and humanism both assume free will?
There are a
> *wide* range of ideas and attitudes under that label. It is rather hard
> to lump them all together as if they formed a single tradition. The
> movement called humanism in 1950s America was a particular kind, but
> hardly the only kind. I know, or rather, knew, as I no longer move in
> such circles, theologians of a wholly orthodox variety who called
> themselves humanists, after Barth, Thielicke and Bonhoeffer.
Don't get me wrong. I think humanism fits quite well within a Christian
world view. I just don't think there is a rational argument for it that'd
fit within a materialistic naturalism world view. You, earlier, thought I
was attempting a god's eye view but I think it more of naturalist's POV.
Male lions, for example, will genocide the previous male's cubs of whom he
disposed. There is a naturalistic explanation for why they do so. Those cubs
have no inherent value or dignity. Humans on the other hand have our own
examples of genocidal behavior having a naturalistic explanation for that as
well. For us and lions it boils down to securing resources and procreation.
If lions suddenly stopped this behavior I don't we'd say they made moral
progress. So from a naturalistic POV what is morality and what's it's
purpose for humans? It seems to me to be simply a social regulator
functioning within *a* given society. Western societies have its and others
(Islamic fundamentalists) one have theirs. They are simply different.
Industrialization has made it more efficient to secure natural resources. I
think cultures and their morals reflect this access to resources and are
less warlike and more humanistic because of it. What happens if or when
natural resources become scarces - oil and gas as an example?
>
> And so I deny that anything that is a humanism must act as a worldview.
> It is a stress on the importance of human beings, to the detriment of
> the emphasis previously given to institutions and exogenous values.
Well in the tradition of Natural Law theory, I don't NL needs those
institutions but the other way around. This begs a question for me, though.
What is the foundation for this importance of human beings within
materialistic naturalism? Natualism holds no such importance but, rather, we
do subjectively (anti-realisticly, so-to-speak). We, intersubjectively,
idolize that importance as though it is a funcitioning part of human
reality. Hence, the human rights of those in different societies are being
violated. Based on what? Our sense of importance of human beings or theirs?
>>
>> As a counter example, the problem with creationists is that their
>> mythology doesn't fit what is now known about the natural world. So
>> rather
>> than adopting their filter,. their mythology, they want to force a view
>> of
>> the natural world to reflect it. To me they are an example of the
>> difference between a *living* and *dead* mythology. There's an emotional
>> need to put one's life in this accord and bring it meaning.
>
> I think that any actively passed on tradition is live. The fact that a
> tradition is unable to cope with the real world hardly makes it a dead
> tradition - ignoring unpleasant facts is something that traditions do
> really, really, well, particularly if they are religious.
Or maybe they (mythologies, religions) function as a governor does for an
engine preventing social change faster than most of the culture's members
could adapt. Look at what happened to those societies that were suddenly
trusted into the western world view, the Polynesians, the native Americans,
aboriginals, etc. Where that was brought about externally, ours is more
internally. We have the fundamentalists fighting back the changes.
>>
>>
>> >OK, then humanism is a mythos.
>>
>> I think it is, or is trying to be, because it claims to have a truth
>> about
>> human dignity/value.....
>>
>> So is common law, the rules of
>> > baseball, and artistic principles among the impressionists.
>>
>> ...where these do not. Unless maybe the common law claims to be in accord
>> with some natural law - claims to be a *just* law.
>
> Common law has a basic principle known as the Duty of Care, which is
> *directly* related to human worth.
I don't know where that Duty of Care come from in Naturalism. Male lions
have no such duty.
Baseball is about achievement.
> Impressionism is about the perceiver and how reality is processed from
> impressions. All these things relate to human dignity and worth.
>
> I think this is an artificial criterion, based on your emphasis on
> religious views as the exemplar of worldviews.
Maybe, but can impressionism can lead to a relative moral objectivism?
>>
>>
>> >
>> > I don't think that terms like "mythos" (and I understood the point from
>> > the beginning) are helpful - it implies several things I think are
>> > wrong. One is the idea that there *is* a mythos, or has to be, or that
>> > it is a monolithic entity of ideas. Another is that we can measure
>> > normalcy in a society from the deviation a "mythos" has from the modal
>> > "mythos". I have elsewhere expressed my skepticism there is any such
>> > beast as a "worldview"; and so on...
>>
>>
>> I thinks it's natural for humans to create (truth) myths - including
>> creating urban myths about politicians and political parties. There's no
>> shortage of political zealots. "Bush is an idiot" and "Bush is
>> manipulating the world oil prices to profit from the high prices since he
>> doesn't think he'll be re-elected." I've heard both those come out of the
>> same mouth. I haver doubts they can both be true at the same time ;).
>>
>> Humans have been making mythology since before the cave of Lascaux. I
>> don't know why that'd be any different for us. Where still the same
>> specie.
>
> You're doing that on purpose aren't you?
Yeah, I am in the context of materialistic naturalism. This thread is about
materialism.
.
"Species"! "Specie" is a kind
> of coinage.
>
> We do not know what Lascaux means; at best we can guess on the basis of
> present day rationalisations for cave art (we do not know even when the
> art is maintained by modern populations, as in the north west in
> Australia). And the business about politics is just a red herring.
>
> You are using a term in disparate contexts and on disparate cases and
> then lumping them together disregardless. I think that is a bad way to
> understand social and cultural change.
I know that cultural relativism is observable and that different cultures
can have very different moralities. What I can't see from a materialistic
POV is where an argument for human rights, Duty of Care, dignaty, worth,
happiness, etc. have any objective bases relative to all cutlures's
moralites.
Scott
William Morse
(snip)
> You are using a term in disparate contexts and on disparate cases and
> then lumping them together disregardless. I think that is a bad way to
> understand social and cultural change.
Disregardless? Look that up in your Funk'n'Wagnalls. It means regardless.
Brought to you by your department of redundancy department :-)
Yours,
Bill Morse
William Morse
news:uWadd.7538$Al3....@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:
>
> "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> news:1glrizy.37k52r18ffiizN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
(snip)
> I know that cultural relativism is observable and that different
> cultures can have very different moralities. What I can't see from a
> materialistic POV is where an argument for human rights, Duty of Care,
> dignaty, worth, happiness, etc. have any objective bases relative to
> all cutlures's moralites.
Huh? All human cultures tend to have very similar moralities for many
situations. These moralities are based mutualism (reciprocal altruism,
if you will) that has an obvious benefit for humans given their niche.
It is certainly instructive to compare human societies to lion societies,
but the two are not the same. (You should note that in lion societies the
females do help each other.)
But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
philosophical base for morality, I will argue for utilitarianism.This
argument has a nice objective basis - the greatest good for the greatest
number - even though in practice the objective is difficult to evaluate.
The problem with theological based morality is its dependence on the
benificence of the particular god - if my God decrees that I should kill
everyone I can, preferably torturing them first, I have no basis to say
that is wrong - it has to be right because it is what my God has decreed.
So on an objective basis, any materialist morality has at least the
benefit of being arguable.
Yours,
Bill Morse
fencingsax
For instance, what cultures DO NOT frown on murder, rape, theft,
molestation, assault, etc.
You don't need religion to be a good person. Sometimes it helps, and
sometimes it doesn't help. It is up to you to appky your religion
with responsibility and morality.
Matt Silberstein
(fencingsax) wrote:
[snip]
>For instance, what cultures DO NOT frown on murder, rape, theft,
>molestation, assault, etc.
Those are value laden terms. By definition murder, rape, theft, etc.
are frowned upon. What changes is what acts constitute murder, rape,
etc. For example, until not that long ago in the U.S. it was not rape
if a husband forced his wife to have sex.
>You don't need religion to be a good person. Sometimes it helps, and
>sometimes it doesn't help. It is up to you to appky your religion
>with responsibility and morality.
--
Matt Silberstein
Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball
Damien Rice
Richard Forrest
Most cultures are quite happy with murder, rape, thefy, molestation
and assault so long as they are acts carried out on 'the enemy' in the
name of 'God', 'Truth', 'The Good of the People', etc. etc. etc.
The definition of those acts also depends on cultural context. I
regard the execution of criminals by the State as murder. To have sex
with a 13 year old girl is regarded in Western Europe as child
molestation and rape. In other cultures (such as Tennessee) it's
regarded as a natural age for marriage.
If I go out onto the street and shoot a stranger it's murder. If my
government tells me to go onto a street in Iraq and shoot a stranger
it's a legitimate action. If a terrorist goes into a cafe in Tel Aviv
and detonates a huge explosion which kills a lot of innocent people,
it's a despicable act of terrorism. If an aircrew carelessly drops a
bomb from 30,000 feet which misses its target and lands in an area of
housing, killing lots of innocent people, it's 'collateral damage'. If
I drive my car carelessly and kill someone, it's a criminal act and I
will be prosecuted for manslaughter.
>
> You don't need religion to be a good person. Sometimes it helps, and
> sometimes it doesn't help. It is up to you to appky your religion
> with responsibility and morality.
There are no moral absolutes.
RF
John Wilkins
> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in
> news:uWadd.7538$Al3....@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:
>
> >
> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
> > news:1glrizy.37k52r18ffiizN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
>
> (snip)
>
> > I know that cultural relativism is observable and that different
> > cultures can have very different moralities. What I can't see from a
> > materialistic POV is where an argument for human rights, Duty of Care,
> > dignaty, worth, happiness, etc. have any objective bases relative to
> > all cutlures's moralites.
>
> Huh? All human cultures tend to have very similar moralities for many
> situations. These moralities are based mutualism (reciprocal altruism,
> if you will) that has an obvious benefit for humans given their niche.
I haven't the slightest clue what I meant by that paragraph now... but
as best I can reconstruct it, I mean there is no physical property that
is the foundation for an absolute morality.
>
> It is certainly instructive to compare human societies to lion societies,
> but the two are not the same. (You should note that in lion societies the
> females do help each other.)
:-) Yow!
Human behaviour is not generally flatly universal. Any universals tend
to be extremely deep and interpreted if they exist. We have a few
obvious candidates for universal behavior (and I have this hypothesis of
my own about one that seems to have been overlooked in the literature;
more later, perhaps) and universals of thought and reason are nearly as
rare, But one thing that is true I believe is that similarities of
behaviour are informative in direct proportion to the phylogenetic
distance between the organisms in comparison.
>
> But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
> philosophical base for morality, I will argue for utilitarianism.This
> argument has a nice objective basis - the greatest good for the greatest
> number - even though in practice the objective is difficult to evaluate.
> The problem with theological based morality is its dependence on the
> benificence of the particular god - if my God decrees that I should kill
> everyone I can, preferably torturing them first, I have no basis to say
> that is wrong - it has to be right because it is what my God has decreed.
> So on an objective basis, any materialist morality has at least the
> benefit of being arguable.
The greatest *what* for the greatest number? "Good" did you say? Is this
a moral terms? How did you come by it?
Now if you had said "greatest happiness" that could perhaps be given a
neurological foundation, but then I must ask you for a reason to see
that as a good. Or you may have indicated greatest health, in which case
I must ask again why this is a *good* and not just a fact about survival
rates and reproductive fitness. None of these are good *in virtue of
being physical properties*.
I concur about the God-based moralities - apart from the Euthyphro
Dilemma, they suffer also from the Genetic Fallacy. But I cannot fathom
how you can come by an objective moral fact in any other way, either.
>
>
> Yours,
>
>
> Bill Morse
Don Cates
Wilkins) wrote:
>William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in
>> news:uWadd.7538$Al3....@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:
>>
>> >
>> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
>> > news:1glrizy.37k52r18ffiizN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>> > I know that cultural relativism is observable and that different
>> > cultures can have very different moralities. What I can't see from a
>> > materialistic POV is where an argument for human rights, Duty of Care,
>> > dignaty, worth, happiness, etc. have any objective bases relative to
>> > all cutlures's moralites.
>>
>> Huh? All human cultures tend to have very similar moralities for many
>> situations. These moralities are based mutualism (reciprocal altruism,
>> if you will) that has an obvious benefit for humans given their niche.
>
>I haven't the slightest clue what I meant by that paragraph now... but
Possibly because you didn't write it. At least I don't see any
paragraph up there (nor below, in the original) that is attributed to
you.
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" - PN)
William Morse
> William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in
>> news:uWadd.7538$Al3....@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:
>>
>> >
>> > "John Wilkins" <john...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
>> > news:1glrizy.37k52r18ffiizN%john...@wilkins.id.au...
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>> > I know that cultural relativism is observable and that different
>> > cultures can have very different moralities. What I can't see from
>> > a materialistic POV is where an argument for human rights, Duty of
>> > Care, dignaty, worth, happiness, etc. have any objective bases
>> > relative to all cutlures's moralites.
>>
>> Huh? All human cultures tend to have very similar moralities for many
>> situations. These moralities are based mutualism (reciprocal
>> altruism, if you will) that has an obvious benefit for humans given
>> their niche.
>
> I haven't the slightest clue what I meant by that paragraph now... but
> as best I can reconstruct it, I mean there is no physical property
> that is the foundation for an absolute morality.
I apologize for the confusion - I snipped your part of the discussion but
left you in the "wrote" part. The paragraph was written by Scott.
>> It is certainly instructive to compare human societies to lion
>> societies, but the two are not the same. (You should note that in
>> lion societies the females do help each other.)
>
>:-) Yow!
>
> Human behaviour is not generally flatly universal. Any universals tend
> to be extremely deep and interpreted if they exist. We have a few
> obvious candidates for universal behavior (and I have this hypothesis
> of my own about one that seems to have been overlooked in the
> literature; more later, perhaps) and universals of thought and reason
> are nearly as rare,
I refer you to the list compiled by Donald Brown, which I found in the
Appendix of Pinker's The Blank Slate. It is far too long to reproduce
here. Now admittedly many of the behaviors listed have little to do with
morality, but the list is impressive.
But one thing that is true I believe is that
> similarities of behaviour are informative in direct proportion to the
> phylogenetic distance between the organisms in comparison.
So we should be looking at cichlid fishes. Some species are monogamous
(at least during a single breeding season). The males and females join in
caring for the young. And in fact in a few species, older siblings also
help in caring for the eggs and wrigglers. I think that should tell us
that some of the "family values" that are ascribed to religious or other
cultural training are nothing of the kind. Of course that still doesn't
relieve us of the obligation to aspire to morality.
>> But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
>> philosophical base for morality, I will argue for utilitarianism.This
>> argument has a nice objective basis - the greatest good for the
>> greatest number - even though in practice the objective is difficult
>> to evaluate. The problem with theological based morality is its
>> dependence on the benificence of the particular god - if my God
>> decrees that I should kill everyone I can, preferably torturing them
>> first, I have no basis to say that is wrong - it has to be right
>> because it is what my God has decreed. So on an objective basis, any
>> materialist morality has at least the benefit of being arguable.
>
> The greatest *what* for the greatest number? "Good" did you say? Is
> this a moral terms? How did you come by it?
>
> Now if you had said "greatest happiness" that could perhaps be given a
> neurological foundation, but then I must ask you for a reason to see
> that as a good.
Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey, whose
argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize. His reasoning
to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our own lives as
if happiness were the object of the game...And once each of us admits
that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good, something
that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it becomes hard to deny
everyone else's identical claim without sounding a bit presumptuos."
Or you may have indicated greatest health, in which
> case I must ask again why this is a *good* and not just a fact about
> survival rates and reproductive fitness. None of these are good *in
> virtue of being physical properties*.
> I concur about the God-based moralities - apart from the Euthyphro
> Dilemma, they suffer also from the Genetic Fallacy. But I cannot
> fathom how you can come by an objective moral fact in any other way,
> either.
Well, yes, the choice of happiness itself as a goal is somewhat
arbitrary. My point was that maximizing happiness for the greatest number
gives one a measuring stick for any act, rather than having to consult an
arbitrary rule book. Now in practice we will consult rule books, because
trying to do the calculus for every act is impractical, but at least we
can evaluate the rules by a standard rather than by which deity handed
them down.
In junior high or early high school I realized that when I passed someone
in the hall I could choose to smile or not to smile. If I smiled, they
usually smiled back. It brightened their day and brightened my day. This
seemed at the time to be a good thing, and seems so today. I really don't
have a problem with making that principle the foundation of my moral
code.
Yours,
Bill Morse
John Wilkins
Yeah, I'm aware of that list, and yes it is impressive, but I doubt that
it adequately lists universals, so much as lists categories that
researchers use as universals into which a range of heterogeneous
cultural behaviours, possibly with underlying universal impetuses,
perhaps not, have been placed.
In any case, even if these universals are innate, correctly classified,
and are not culturally biased, that is not a very great list as such
compared to our human repertiore of behaviours due to cultural
variation.
>
> But one thing that is true I believe is that
> > similarities of behaviour are informative in direct proportion to the
> > phylogenetic distance between the organisms in comparison.
>
> So we should be looking at cichlid fishes. Some species are monogamous
> (at least during a single breeding season). The males and females join in
> caring for the young. And in fact in a few species, older siblings also
> help in caring for the eggs and wrigglers. I think that should tell us
> that some of the "family values" that are ascribed to religious or other
> cultural training are nothing of the kind. Of course that still doesn't
> relieve us of the obligation to aspire to morality.
Questions of what is "natural" shouldn't relate to species that are not
closely related to us. In fact, they should really relate to a species
other than us (bonobos copulating at the drop of a hat in order to
cement social alliances is hardly a reason why we should do it).
Cichlids are so far removed from us any analogies are fraught with
danger.
>
>
>
>
> >> But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
> >> philosophical base for morality, I will argue for utilitarianism.This
> >> argument has a nice objective basis - the greatest good for the
> >> greatest number - even though in practice the objective is difficult
> >> to evaluate. The problem with theological based morality is its
> >> dependence on the benificence of the particular god - if my God
> >> decrees that I should kill everyone I can, preferably torturing them
> >> first, I have no basis to say that is wrong - it has to be right
> >> because it is what my God has decreed. So on an objective basis, any
> >> materialist morality has at least the benefit of being arguable.
> >
> > The greatest *what* for the greatest number? "Good" did you say? Is
> > this a moral terms? How did you come by it?
> >
> > Now if you had said "greatest happiness" that could perhaps be given a
> > neurological foundation, but then I must ask you for a reason to see
> > that as a good.
>
> Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey, whose
> argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize. His reasoning
> to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our own lives as
> if happiness were the object of the game...And once each of us admits
> that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good, something
> that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it becomes hard to deny
> everyone else's identical claim without sounding a bit presumptuos."
Even so, why is happinesss worth maximising? What makes *it* the value
we should prize, rather than, say, honour (which has a much stronger
underlying fitness rationale, by the way :-)? It is too easy to step
from some biological or other physical property to claiming it is a
Good. But that step requires a way to establish that the value is,
indeed, valuable, and you cannot do that from *any* amount of factual
recitation.
>
> Or you may have indicated greatest health, in which
> > case I must ask again why this is a *good* and not just a fact about
> > survival rates and reproductive fitness. None of these are good *in
> > virtue of being physical properties*.
>
> > I concur about the God-based moralities - apart from the Euthyphro
> > Dilemma, they suffer also from the Genetic Fallacy. But I cannot
> > fathom how you can come by an objective moral fact in any other way,
> > either.
>
> Well, yes, the choice of happiness itself as a goal is somewhat
> arbitrary. My point was that maximizing happiness for the greatest number
> gives one a measuring stick for any act, rather than having to consult an
> arbitrary rule book. Now in practice we will consult rule books, because
> trying to do the calculus for every act is impractical, but at least we
> can evaluate the rules by a standard rather than by which deity handed
> them down.
This is referred to as Rule Utilitarianism, by the way.
>
> In junior high or early high school I realized that when I passed someone
> in the hall I could choose to smile or not to smile. If I smiled, they
> usually smiled back. It brightened their day and brightened my day. This
> seemed at the time to be a good thing, and seems so today. I really don't
> have a problem with making that principle the foundation of my moral
> code.
Nor I. We are discussing the philosophy here, not the practicalities. If
it comes to practical utility, then wireheading (stimulating the
pleasure centres of the brains of unhappy people) is perhaps about to
become the most practical solution to social ills :-)
Scott
Your argument looks like one that comes under the naturalistic fallacy
called a genetic fallacy.
Scott
Scott
"fencingsax" <chris...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:c1aaf5a4.04101...@posting.google.com...
Depends on who you are killing and why, don't you think? For example, I Iran
it is not illigal to kill someone of an non-state-sanction religion such as
Bahai. http://www.endgenocide.org/genocide/bahai.html
http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/id22.html
>
> You don't need religion to be a good person.
No body is make that claim. The moral problem is what's a "good person"? Is
that descriptive or prescriptive?
Sometimes it helps, and
> sometimes it doesn't help. It is up to you to appky your religion
> with responsibility and morality.
Whose relative cultural morality?
Scott
Scott
"Richard Forrest" <ric...@plesiosaur.com> wrote in message
news:892cb437.04102...@posting.google.com...
You don't need gods to do those thinks but it helps to justify one's reasons
for why they are done. It only takes a desire for the others' lands,
resources, preservation of one's culture (not excluding democratic), etc.
>
> The definition of those acts also depends on cultural context. I
> regard the execution of criminals by the State as murder. To have sex
> with a 13 year old girl is regarded in Western Europe as child
> molestation and rape. In other cultures (such as Tennessee) it's
> regarded as a natural age for marriage.
In Tennessee it's 16 without a court order. New Hampshire is 13 for females
http://www.coolnurse.com/marriage_laws.htm
Scott
No. Human behavior is relative to us.
>
>
>
>
>>> But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
>>> philosophical base for morality, I will argue for utilitarianism.This
>>> argument has a nice objective basis - the greatest good for the
>>> greatest number - even though in practice the objective is difficult
>>> to evaluate. The problem with theological based morality is its
>>> dependence on the benificence of the particular god - if my God
>>> decrees that I should kill everyone I can, preferably torturing them
>>> first, I have no basis to say that is wrong - it has to be right
>>> because it is what my God has decreed. So on an objective basis, any
>>> materialist morality has at least the benefit of being arguable.
>>
>> The greatest *what* for the greatest number? "Good" did you say? Is
>> this a moral terms? How did you come by it?
>>
>> Now if you had said "greatest happiness" that could perhaps be given a
>> neurological foundation, but then I must ask you for a reason to see
>> that as a good.
>
> Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey, whose
> argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize.
This "should" is an *ought* that'd violate Hume's Law. It begs the question:
Why should it?
His reasoning
> to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our own lives as
> if happiness were the object of the game...
as do the Isamic fundamentalist by their actions.
And once each of us admits
> that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good, something
> that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it becomes hard to deny
> everyone else's identical claim without sounding a bit presumptuos."
What is this *right* - this right to pursue happiness? Are human rights
inherent? Are they natural rights - akin to natural law? Any claim to such
an affirmation is said to be a naturalistic fallacy....but that is the very
thing *our* humanism's arguments for the rights of those in other cultures
are founded upon. Our humanism claims a truth without having a rational
bases for doing so. I wonder if Jefferson knew what he was doing and why
when he *grounded* his unalienable rights in his deistic creator since a
materialistic nature provides no such grounding.....and why I say our belief
in those human rights looks like mythology.
>
> Or you may have indicated greatest health, in which
>> case I must ask again why this is a *good* and not just a fact about
>> survival rates and reproductive fitness. None of these are good *in
>> virtue of being physical properties*.
>
>> I concur about the God-based moralities - apart from the Euthyphro
>> Dilemma, they suffer also from the Genetic Fallacy. But I cannot
>> fathom how you can come by an objective moral fact in any other way,
>> either.
>
> Well, yes, the choice of happiness itself as a goal is somewhat
> arbitrary. My point was that maximizing happiness for the greatest number
> gives one a measuring stick for any act, rather than having to consult an
> arbitrary rule book.
I'm quite certain Islamic fundamentalist believe they are maximizing
happiness for the greatest number of Muslims.
Now in practice we will consult rule books, because
> trying to do the calculus for every act is impractical, but at least we
> can evaluate the rules by a standard rather than by which deity handed
> them down.
That has been the historical purpose of how rules functioned with cultures
having a *working* mythology.
Scott
Scott
"Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:NgRdd.8187$q%7.1...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
snipped
>
> And once each of us admits
>> that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good, something
>> that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it becomes hard to deny
>> everyone else's identical claim without sounding a bit presumptuos."
>
>
> What is this *right* - this right to pursue happiness? Are human rights
> inherent? Are they natural rights - akin to natural law? Any claim to such
> an affirmation is said to be a naturalistic fallacy....but that is the
> very thing *our* humanism's arguments for the rights of those in other
> cultures are founded upon. Our humanism claims a truth without having a
> rational bases for doing so. I wonder if Jefferson knew what he was doing
> and why when he *grounded* his unalienable rights in his deistic creator
> since a materialistic nature provides no such grounding.....and why I say
> our belief in those human rights looks like mythology.
I'm not the only one, it seems, who has this POV:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/hrlc/hrnews/feb97/french.htm
Scott
fencingsax
This is a little extreme to me, but it doesn't contradict my point.
My point was (and always has been) that you don't need religion to
have decent people.
> The definition of those acts also depends on cultural context. I
> regard the execution of criminals by the State as murder. To have sex
> with a 13 year old girl is regarded in Western Europe as child
> molestation and rape. In other cultures (such as Tennessee) it's
> regarded as a natural age for marriage.
>
> If I go out onto the street and shoot a stranger it's murder. If my
> government tells me to go onto a street in Iraq and shoot a stranger
> it's a legitimate action. If a terrorist goes into a cafe in Tel Aviv
> and detonates a huge explosion which kills a lot of innocent people,
> it's a despicable act of terrorism. If an aircrew carelessly drops a
> bomb from 30,000 feet which misses its target and lands in an area of
> housing, killing lots of innocent people, it's 'collateral damage'. If
> I drive my car carelessly and kill someone, it's a criminal act and I
> will be prosecuted for manslaughter.
I think understand what you are saying, and I agree about the
collateral damage/terrorism thing. The U.S. ( which although I am
using as an example doesn't mean it is the only one etc etc) has laws
concerning these very acts. Justifiable homicide is forgiven by law.
And yes the mistakes and intelligence failures are terrible, and they
should be fixed. However, and this is a big However, this does not
excuse YOU from killing somebody.
> >
> > You don't need religion to be a good person. Sometimes it helps, and
> > sometimes it doesn't help. It is up to you to appky your religion
> > with responsibility and morality.
>
> There are no moral absolutes.
I know there aren't, but there are acts that most people consider
repugnant and disgusting. Murder, rape, theft, assault etc,
> RF
William Morse
news:NgRdd.8187$q%7.1...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com:
>
> "William Morse" <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9588EDCDF...@24.24.2.166...
>> john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
>> news:1glyfoo.1bi4e65pqjhouN%john...@wilkins.id.au:
>>
>>> William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>>>> (snip)
>> So we should be looking at cichlid fishes. Some species are
>> monogamous (at least during a single breeding season). The males and
>> females join in caring for the young. And in fact in a few species,
>> older siblings also help in caring for the eggs and wrigglers. I
>> think that should tell us that some of the "family values" that are
>> ascribed to religious or other cultural training are nothing of the
>> kind. Of course that still doesn't relieve us of the obligation to
>> aspire to morality.
>
>
> No. Human behavior is relative to us.
I'm sorry, but I could interpret that comment as either agreeing with the
last sentence in my paragraph or disagreeing with my reference to cichlid
fishes.
>>>> But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
>>>> philosophical base for morality, I will argue for
>>>> utilitarianism.This argument has a nice objective basis - the
>>>> greatest good for the greatest number - even though in practice the
>>>> objective is difficult to evaluate. The problem with theological
>>>> based morality is its dependence on the benificence of the
>>>> particular god - if my God decrees that I should kill everyone I
>>>> can, preferably torturing them first, I have no basis to say that
>>>> is wrong - it has to be right because it is what my God has
>>>> decreed. So on an objective basis, any materialist morality has at
>>>> least the benefit of being arguable.
>>>
>>> The greatest *what* for the greatest number? "Good" did you say? Is
>>> this a moral terms? How did you come by it?
>>>
>>> Now if you had said "greatest happiness" that could perhaps be given
>>> a neurological foundation, but then I must ask you for a reason to
>>> see that as a good.
>>
>> Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey,
>> whose argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize.
>
> This "should" is an *ought* that'd violate Hume's Law. It begs the
> question: Why should it?
A moral code is presumably based on something, otherwise it isn't moral,
it is just a code. And if it is to be based on a standard, arbitrary or
not, it is going to be some sort of maximization function, even if it is
maximizing closeness to perfect moderation. So we have to make a choice
of what it is we want to maximize. I will choose happiness, and I think
my choice is defensible against other possible choices. Now if you want
to ask why we "should" have a moral code, that is a different question.
> His reasoning
>> to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our own lives
>> as if happiness were the object of the game...
> as do the Isamic fundamentalist by their actions.
Yes. And?
> And once each of us admits
>> that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good,
>> something that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it
>> becomes hard to deny everyone else's identical claim without sounding
>> a bit presumptuos."
> What is this *right* - this right to pursue happiness? Are human
> rights inherent? Are they natural rights - akin to natural law? Any
> claim to such an affirmation is said to be a naturalistic
> fallacy....but that is the very thing *our* humanism's arguments for
> the rights of those in other cultures are founded upon. Our humanism
> claims a truth without having a rational bases for doing so. I wonder
> if Jefferson knew what he was doing and why when he *grounded* his
> unalienable rights in his deistic creator since a materialistic nature
> provides no such grounding.....and why I say our belief in those human
> rights looks like mythology.
What Ardrey said was not that we have the arbitrary right to pursue
happiness, but that others do not have the arbitrary right to stop us.
>> Well, yes, the choice of happiness itself as a goal is somewhat
>> arbitrary. My point was that maximizing happiness for the greatest
>> number gives one a measuring stick for any act, rather than having to
>> consult an arbitrary rule book.
>
> I'm quite certain Islamic fundamentalist believe they are maximizing
> happiness for the greatest number of Muslims.
I'm not very familiar with Islam, but I assume that they are required to
maximize happiness for all people - which probably requires conversion to
Islam.And I'm quite certain Christian fundamentalists believe they are
maximizing happiness for the greatest number of people (etc. etc. for
other religions) That doesn't make any one or them right by virtue of
their devotion. They would only be right if in fact their actions achieve
the intended result - and that will be left to history to decide. But we
can then look to history as a guide to the likelihood of success, and one
of the constants we find is that the end never justifies the means, even
though there appears to be no logical reason why it shouldn't. So it is
unlikely that the tactic of killing innocents adopted by the Islamic
fundamentalists, or the tactic of torturing prisoners adopted by the
current American administration, both of which fly in the face of their
stated standards of conduct, will prove to advance human happiness in the
long run.
Yours,
Bill Morse
William Morse
> William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
>> news:1glyfoo.1bi4e65pqjhouN%john...@wilkins.id.au:
(snip)
>> But one thing that is true I believe is that
>> > similarities of behaviour are informative in direct proportion to
>> > the phylogenetic distance between the organisms in comparison.
>> So we should be looking at cichlid fishes. Some species are
>> monogamous (at least during a single breeding season). The males and
>> females join in caring for the young. And in fact in a few species,
>> older siblings also help in caring for the eggs and wrigglers. I
>> think that should tell us that some of the "family values" that are
>> ascribed to religious or other cultural training are nothing of the
>> kind. Of course that still doesn't relieve us of the obligation to
>> aspire to morality.
> Questions of what is "natural" shouldn't relate to species that are
> not closely related to us. In fact, they should really relate to a
> species other than us (bonobos copulating at the drop of a hat in
> order to cement social alliances is hardly a reason why we should do
> it). Cichlids are so far removed from us any analogies are fraught
> with danger.
Now wait a minute! You had said that similarities of behaviour were
informative in direct proportion to phylogenetic distance. Now you are
saying they are relate in inverse proportion to phylogenetic distance,
except that you won't allow behavior of close relatives to count. Sprik
Engrish, Troop.
I will note that I am not arguing that what is "natural" must be
encouraged. What I am saying is that we can better understand the
universals that do exist (and they _do exist_) among humans by looking at
other species. And for many behaviors - family structure being a notable
example - the ecological relatedness of a species may be as significant
as the phylogenetic relatedness. Gorillas have a different family
structure than humans. Different genera of cichlid species also exhibit
different family structures, but some cichlid genera resemble the family
structure of gorillas and some resemble the family structure of humans.
One of the requirements for a useful moral code is that it be obtainable.
We might decide that monogamy leads to jealousy, so we should force
everyone to change sexual partners frequently - but this flies so far in
the face of human nature that even with the cultural plasticity of humans
it is unreasonable.
(snip)
>> Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey,
>> whose argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize. His
>> reasoning to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our
>> own lives as if happiness were the object of the game...And once each
>> of us admits that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense
>> good, something that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it
>> becomes hard to deny everyone else's identical claim without sounding
>> a bit presumptuos."
>
> Even so, why is happinesss worth maximising? What makes *it* the value
> we should prize, rather than, say, honour (which has a much stronger
> underlying fitness rationale, by the way :-)? It is too easy to step
> from some biological or other physical property to claiming it is a
> Good. But that step requires a way to establish that the value is,
> indeed, valuable, and you cannot do that from *any* amount of factual
> recitation.
There are at least three problems with honour, even if it does have a
stronger fitness rationale (I didn't know you were such a romantic,
John): (1) honour is very subject to hypocrisy; (2) honour is essentially
a doomsday device, and I much prefer more stable goals; (3) happiness has
the advantage of being a moving target, so that we can get progressive
benefits from using it as a goal - sort of like evolution :-)
>> In junior high or early high school I realized that when I passed
>> someone in the hall I could choose to smile or not to smile. If I
>> smiled, they usually smiled back. It brightened their day and
>> brightened my day. This seemed at the time to be a good thing, and
>> seems so today. I really don't have a problem with making that
>> principle the foundation of my moral code.
>
> Nor I. We are discussing the philosophy here, not the practicalities.
> If it comes to practical utility, then wireheading (stimulating the
> pleasure centres of the brains of unhappy people) is perhaps about to
> become the most practical solution to social ills :-)
You of all people should recognize that the philosophy is all about the
practicalities. Isn't that what wisdom is about? As to wireheading, is
that like being a newsgroup junkie :-)
As usual, a pleasure discussing philosophy with you, even when I haven't
a clue what I'm talking about.
Yours,
Bill Morse
John Wilkins
Did I say that? I meant that the closer phylogenetically, the better
they are as inductive grounds WRT us. But no matter how closely related
to us, if they *aren't* us, there is a danger they will not work as an
inductive basis, particularly on evolutionarily plastic traits..
For example - while you can infer quite a lot about us from studying
mice, biochemically speaking, you can infer a lot more from chimps. But
if behaviour is species-specific, then you cannot infer from bonobo
copulation that this is what we do. We are highly derived in behavioural
terms.
>
> I will note that I am not arguing that what is "natural" must be
> encouraged. What I am saying is that we can better understand the
> universals that do exist (and they _do exist_) among humans by looking at
> other species. And for many behaviors - family structure being a notable
> example - the ecological relatedness of a species may be as significant
> as the phylogenetic relatedness. Gorillas have a different family
> structure than humans. Different genera of cichlid species also exhibit
> different family structures, but some cichlid genera resemble the family
> structure of gorillas and some resemble the family structure of humans.
But given that behaviour seems not to be phylogenetically conserved, we
are now using not plesiomorphies or apomorphies, but homoplasies, as the
basis for our inferences. And these are similar just to the extent they
strike the observer as salient; since we interpret behaviour socially,
this means we are in dire danger of making our social categories human
universals. This is a Bad Thing.
>
> One of the requirements for a useful moral code is that it be obtainable.
> We might decide that monogamy leads to jealousy, so we should force
> everyone to change sexual partners frequently - but this flies so far in
> the face of human nature that even with the cultural plasticity of humans
> it is unreasonable.
Some might argue the empirical evidence is in fact pointing the other
direction :-)
>
> (snip)
>
> >> Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey,
> >> whose argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize. His
> >> reasoning to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our
> >> own lives as if happiness were the object of the game...And once each
> >> of us admits that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense
> >> good, something that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it
> >> becomes hard to deny everyone else's identical claim without sounding
> >> a bit presumptuos."
> >
> > Even so, why is happinesss worth maximising? What makes *it* the value
> > we should prize, rather than, say, honour (which has a much stronger
> > underlying fitness rationale, by the way :-)? It is too easy to step
> > from some biological or other physical property to claiming it is a
> > Good. But that step requires a way to establish that the value is,
> > indeed, valuable, and you cannot do that from *any* amount of factual
> > recitation.
>
> There are at least three problems with honour, even if it does have a
> stronger fitness rationale (I didn't know you were such a romantic,
> John): (1) honour is very subject to hypocrisy; (2) honour is essentially
> a doomsday device, and I much prefer more stable goals; (3) happiness has
> the advantage of being a moving target, so that we can get progressive
> benefits from using it as a goal - sort of like evolution :-)
Didn't say I *liked* it, but honour is essentially related to family
status, and hence has a direct correlation to fitness. And to prefer
happiness in terms of it being progressive, you need to have some
criterion of progress - a valuational conception.
>
>
> >> In junior high or early high school I realized that when I passed
> >> someone in the hall I could choose to smile or not to smile. If I
> >> smiled, they usually smiled back. It brightened their day and
> >> brightened my day. This seemed at the time to be a good thing, and
> >> seems so today. I really don't have a problem with making that
> >> principle the foundation of my moral code.
> >
> > Nor I. We are discussing the philosophy here, not the practicalities.
> > If it comes to practical utility, then wireheading (stimulating the
> > pleasure centres of the brains of unhappy people) is perhaps about to
> > become the most practical solution to social ills :-)
>
> You of all people should recognize that the philosophy is all about the
> practicalities. Isn't that what wisdom is about? As to wireheading, is
> that like being a newsgroup junkie :-)
You don't read much philosophy, do you? And yes, to the second
question...
>
>
> As usual, a pleasure discussing philosophy with you, even when I haven't
> a clue what I'm talking about.
Me too ;-)
Scott
> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in
> news:NgRdd.8187$q%7.1...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com:
>
>>
>> "William Morse" <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
>> news:Xns9588EDCDF...@24.24.2.166...
>>> john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
>>> news:1glyfoo.1bi4e65pqjhouN%john...@wilkins.id.au:
>>>
>>>> William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>>>> (snip)
>
>>> So we should be looking at cichlid fishes. Some species are
>>> monogamous (at least during a single breeding season). The males and
>>> females join in caring for the young. And in fact in a few species,
>>> older siblings also help in caring for the eggs and wrigglers. I
>>> think that should tell us that some of the "family values" that are
>>> ascribed to religious or other cultural training are nothing of the
>>> kind. Of course that still doesn't relieve us of the obligation to
>>> aspire to morality.
>>
>>
>> No. Human behavior is relative to us.
>
> I'm sorry, but I could interpret that comment as either agreeing with the
> last sentence in my paragraph or disagreeing with my reference to cichlid
> fishes.
to the later. Observed behaviorism is relative to the critter.
Where does this obligation to aspire to morality come from? It seems to me
that any answer you give will beg a question.
>
>>>>> But so far I do not take your point. If we are looking for a
>>>>> philosophical base for morality, I will argue for
>>>>> utilitarianism.This argument has a nice objective basis - the
>>>>> greatest good for the greatest number - even though in practice the
>>>>> objective is difficult to evaluate. The problem with theological
>>>>> based morality is its dependence on the benificence of the
>>>>> particular god - if my God decrees that I should kill everyone I
>>>>> can, preferably torturing them first, I have no basis to say that
>>>>> is wrong - it has to be right because it is what my God has
>>>>> decreed. So on an objective basis, any materialist morality has at
>>>>> least the benefit of being arguable.
>>>>
>>>> The greatest *what* for the greatest number? "Good" did you say? Is
>>>> this a moral terms? How did you come by it?
>>>>
>>>> Now if you had said "greatest happiness" that could perhaps be given
>>>> a neurological foundation, but then I must ask you for a reason to
>>>> see that as a good.
>>>
>>> Sorry, I should have said happiness. That is in fact what Ardrey,
>>> whose argument I am parroting, says a moral code should maximize.
>>
>> This "should" is an *ought* that'd violate Hume's Law. It begs the
>> question: Why should it?
>
> A moral code is presumably based on something, otherwise it isn't moral,
> it is just a code.
moral codes are just codes for social mores. There based on individuals need
to know and understand the rules relative to a/their given culture - "When
in Rome..."
And if it is to be based on a standard, arbitrary or
> not, it is going to be some sort of maximization function, even if it is
> maximizing closeness to perfect moderation. So we have to make a choice
> of what it is we want to maximize. I will choose happiness, and I think
> my choice is defensible against other possible choices. Now if you want
> to ask why we "should" have a moral code, that is a different question.
begs a question: What is happiness to you and does that necessarily apply to
everyone else and their values?
>
>
>> His reasoning
>>> to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our own lives
>>> as if happiness were the object of the game...
>
>> as do the Isamic fundamentalist by their actions.
>
> Yes. And?
Are their sense of happiness contra to yours? That's the point. What or
whose standards should be used to maximize everyone's happiness? Yours or
theirs? It comes down to values.
>
>
>> And once each of us admits
>>> that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good,
>>> something that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it
>>> becomes hard to deny everyone else's identical claim without sounding
>>> a bit presumptuos."
>
>> What is this *right* - this right to pursue happiness? Are human
>> rights inherent? Are they natural rights - akin to natural law? Any
>> claim to such an affirmation is said to be a naturalistic
>> fallacy....but that is the very thing *our* humanism's arguments for
>> the rights of those in other cultures are founded upon. Our humanism
>> claims a truth without having a rational bases for doing so. I wonder
>> if Jefferson knew what he was doing and why when he *grounded* his
>> unalienable rights in his deistic creator since a materialistic nature
>> provides no such grounding.....and why I say our belief in those human
>> rights looks like mythology.
>
> What Ardrey said was not that we have the arbitrary right to pursue
> happiness, but that others do not have the arbitrary right to stop us.
Why don't they? Or way do they even need such a right in the first place?
>
>
>>> Well, yes, the choice of happiness itself as a goal is somewhat
>>> arbitrary. My point was that maximizing happiness for the greatest
>>> number gives one a measuring stick for any act, rather than having to
>>> consult an arbitrary rule book.
>>
>> I'm quite certain Islamic fundamentalist believe they are maximizing
>> happiness for the greatest number of Muslims.
>
> I'm not very familiar with Islam, but I assume that they are required to
> maximize happiness for all people - which probably requires conversion to
> Islam.And I'm quite certain Christian fundamentalists believe they are
> maximizing happiness for the greatest number of people (etc. etc. for
> other religions) That doesn't make any one or them right by virtue of
> their devotion. They would only be right if in fact their actions achieve
> the intended result - and that will be left to history to decide. But we
> can then look to history as a guide to the likelihood of success, and one
> of the constants we find is that the end never justifies the means,
Of course it does. It does because all moral codes are self-justifying.
even
> though there appears to be no logical reason why it shouldn't. So it is
> unlikely that the tactic of killing innocents
"Innocents" are relative.
adopted by the Islamic
> fundamentalists, or the tactic of torturing prisoners adopted by the
> current American administration, both of which fly in the face of their
> stated standards of conduct, will prove to advance human happiness in the
> long run.
That might depend on who wins and what values their standards are based
upon.
Scott
Scott
If the culture's positive law says it excuses you then why shouldn't it
excuse you? An positive law was said to be just or unjust whether or not it
conformed to Natural Law Theory. Natural Law is now deemed a naturalistic
fallacy. Bottom line, if the positive law says you are excused then you are
morally excused relative to that culture's positive law. Example: I read
where an Iranian was excused from killing a member of the Baha'i faith
because believes in Baha'i have no legal protection in Iran since Baha'i is
no sanctioned by the governing theocracy.
fencingsax
Don't see what you're arguing with. If anything, you're simplifying
the situation. I was arguing that, while soldiers killing people in
the line of duty is not illegal for the obvious reasons, it is not
legal for you to kill anybody except for a specific, defined set of
circumstances. And just because you are released legally doesn't mean
you are released morally. Example: I don't think that Iranian was
behaving in any way morally, however it is probable, according to you,
he was acting legally.
William Morse
news:01bed.8896$q%7.3...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com:
>
> "William Morse" <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9589D1726...@24.24.2.167...
>> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in
>> news:NgRdd.8187$q%7.1...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com:
>>
>>>
>>> "William Morse" <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
>>> news:Xns9588EDCDF...@24.24.2.166...
>>>> john...@wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
>>>> news:1glyfoo.1bi4e65pqjhouN%john...@wilkins.id.au:
>>>>
>>>>> William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>>> (snip)
>>
>>>> So we should be looking at cichlid fishes. Some species are
>>>> monogamous (at least during a single breeding season). The males
>>>> and females join in caring for the young. And in fact in a few
>>>> species, older siblings also help in caring for the eggs and
>>>> wrigglers. I think that should tell us that some of the "family
>>>> values" that are ascribed to religious or other cultural training
>>>> are nothing of the kind. Of course that still doesn't relieve us of
>>>> the obligation to aspire to morality.
>>>
>>>
>>> No. Human behavior is relative to us.
>>
>> I'm sorry, but I could interpret that comment as either agreeing with
>> the last sentence in my paragraph or disagreeing with my reference to
>> cichlid fishes.
>
> to the later. Observed behaviorism is relative to the critter.
But in fact it isn't. Much observed behaviorism is relative to the niche
- as is amply illustrated by a comparison of primate behaviors and
cichlid behaviors. And it is quite well predicted by Trivers theory of
parental investment.
> Where does this obligation to aspire to morality come from? It seems
> to me that any answer you give will beg a question.
It may well for you, because the answer is convoluted and iterative.
Humans are aware of the difference between good and evil. Now you can ask
what is "good", and the answer will be that originally it is rooted in
the conjunction in humans of self-interest and group interest. We can
conceive of a good that is outside our narrow self-interest because of
group selection that is based on reciprocal altruism. This has required
us to become cognizant of the desires of others, in order to successfully
model their behavior as part of our environment. But the net result is
that we can weigh outcomes as good for the group in general as opposed to
just good for us (with good in this case meaning more likely to lead to
continued survival).
Now for many years (and still for many peoples) the group deserving of
consideration is rather limited in scope, so that it is perfectly
acceptable to kill unbelievers, or injuns, or palefaces, or niggers, or
honkies, or Hutus, or Tutsis, etc. But the trend is that the ingroup
continually expands, so now we speak of concerns for humanity, and their
are animal rights activists. We have managed to move from self-interest
to eco-interest. So now my concept of good has expanded from simple
survival of myself to the good of Gaia. But I still have the ability to
differentiate good from evil. How do I not have an obligation to choose
good?
(snip)
>>> His reasoning
>>>> to see that as a good is fairly simple: "we all conduct our own
>>>> lives as if happiness were the object of the game...
>>
>>> as do the Isamic fundamentalist by their actions.
>>
>> Yes. And?
>
> Are their sense of happiness contra to yours? That's the point. What
> or whose standards should be used to maximize everyone's happiness?
> Yours or theirs? It comes down to values.
Mine for my happiness, yours for your happiness, theirs for their
happiness. Obviously any given action will not make everyone happy, but
who said that it would? That is a problem for utilitarian calculations.
If humans shared no values it might be an insurmountable problem, but in
fact they do share many values. In specific instances it will not be
possible to determine what is "best" using a utilitarian argument. Hard
cases make bad law. Deal with it.
>>> And once each of us admits
>>>> that, yes, we find our own happiness in some basic sense good,
>>>> something that is not rightly trampled upon without reason, it
>>>> becomes hard to deny everyone else's identical claim without
>>>> sounding a bit presumptuos."
>>> What is this *right* - this right to pursue happiness? Are human
>>> rights inherent? Are they natural rights - akin to natural law? Any
>>> claim to such an affirmation is said to be a naturalistic
>>> fallacy....but that is the very thing *our* humanism's arguments for
>>> the rights of those in other cultures are founded upon. Our humanism
>>> claims a truth without having a rational bases for doing so. I
>>> wonder if Jefferson knew what he was doing and why when he
>>> *grounded* his unalienable rights in his deistic creator since a
>>> materialistic nature provides no such grounding.....and why I say
>>> our belief in those human rights looks like mythology.
>> What Ardrey said was not that we have the arbitrary right to pursue
>> happiness, but that others do not have the arbitrary right to stop
>> us.
> Why don't they? Or way do they even need such a right in the first
> place?
Look, if you're going to object to the concept of natural rights, you
can't then argue that people do have such rights. Only I get to argue
both sides of the question at once :-)
>>>> Well, yes, the choice of happiness itself as a goal is somewhat
>>>> arbitrary. My point was that maximizing happiness for the greatest
>>>> number gives one a measuring stick for any act, rather than having
>>>> to consult an arbitrary rule book.
>>>
>>> I'm quite certain Islamic fundamentalist believe they are maximizing
>>> happiness for the greatest number of Muslims.
>>
>> I'm not very familiar with Islam, but I assume that they are required
>> to maximize happiness for all people - which probably requires
>> conversion to Islam.And I'm quite certain Christian fundamentalists
>> believe they are maximizing happiness for the greatest number of
>> people (etc. etc. for other religions) That doesn't make any one or
>> them right by virtue of their devotion. They would only be right if
>> in fact their actions achieve the intended result - and that will be
>> left to history to decide. But we can then look to history as a guide
>> to the likelihood of success, and one of the constants we find is
>> that the end never justifies the means,
>
> Of course it does. It does because all moral codes are
> self-justifying.
Wrong. Moral codes can't be self -justifying, and you can't argue that
because you are accusing me of incorrectly making my moral code self-
justifying, which I just did, but then I'm not the one with a problem
with paradoxes :-) In any case, that was a trick question. The ends never
justify the means because there are no ends, only means.
Yours,
Bill Morse
Scott
on evil from an atheist web site http://www.eclipse.co.uk/thoughts/evil.htm
Scott
Why not? Morality is relative to the culture in question - e.g. Cultural
Relativism. Your argument implies the existence of an universal objective
morality that cuts across cultural mores. There is no evidence for such an
objectivism. And any argument to such is said to lead to a naturalistic
fallacy. It *is* a fact that humans have moral codes. It is not a fact as to
what/which *ought* to be the moral code for all. Hume's Law: you can't get
an ought from an is.
Example: I don't think that Iranian was
> behaving in any way morally, however it is probable, according to you,
> he was acting legally.
He maynot have been acting morally by *your* (cultural) standards but he
very well could have been acting morally by *his* (cultural) standards.
Scott
fencingsax
I said no such thing. I simply was stating precepts that *many* moral
codes seem to agree on. I am *not* saying that the all do, just that
many do. And for your first statement, Law and morality don't really
have much in common. Because, as you said each culture, in fact each
person, has their own morality. The Law is objective, and so
generally doesn't take morality into acount. It does allow for
justifications and the such like, but it is not morals it takes into
account.