absolute moraility

[jillery]

My understanding is, most objections from pseudo-skeptics are not
based on the technical merits or the veracity of the claims to which
they object. Instead, their objections are based on their concerns
about a larger truth, ie moral truth. My impression is,
pseudo-skeptics larger concern leads them to conclude other posters
are immoral, or at least behave immorally.

With that in mind, the following is relevant to their objections. It's
a link to a 42-minute response from Paulogia to two self-identified
Christian philosophers responding to his morality challenge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plMOYOTSYlE

Paulogia's Morality Challenge: Assume a list of moral truths based on
the Bible, and a list of moral truths based on minimizing pain and
maximizing well-being. If both lists are comprehensive and exhaustive,
there will be some truths which appear only on one list or the other,
and there will be some truths which appear on both lists. Given that,
the challenge is to identify a moral truth which appears *only* on the
first list, of moral truths from the Bible, to show that the Bible and
a belief in God are necessary for establishing moral truths.

AIUI Paulogia's argument is, if an alleged moral truth does not
minimize pain and maximize well-being, then it doesn't qualify as a
moral truth. OTOH if an alleged moral truth minimizes pain and
maximizes well-being, then the Bible is unnecessary for qualifying it
as a moral truth. IOW establishing what minimizes pain and maximizes
well-being are sufficient and necessary for determining moral truths,
no God or Bible required.

The Christian philosophers criticized Paulogia for conflating what
morality is with what morality ought to be (ontology), and with how we
know the difference (epistemology). They challenged Paulogia to first
more carefully describe his argument, in order to give them something
substantive to worry about.

In response, Paulogia framed these questions:

How can you demonstrate that morality requires ontological grounding
in the first place?

What evidence can you provide for the existence of moral truths beyond
your personal intuition and appeals to normative ethics?

If intuition is how we learn moral truths, on what basis can you say
that your intuition is right and my intuition is wrong?

What observation about morality is insufficiently explained by
grounding in biology in the natural world?

Please explain how, in a dispute situation, appealing to an
unrecognized authority is functionally different than merely
expressing a personal moral preference?

My impression is, these questions would give T.O.'s pseudo-skeptics
something substantive to worry about. Of course, I could be wrong.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[abneri...@gmail.com]

jillery wrote:
> My impression is, these questions would give T.O.'s pseudo-skeptics
> something substantive to worry about. Of course, I could be wrong.

Nice! I hope you get some substantive responses.

[Robert Carnegie]

One thinks of angels and pin-heads. I'm postponing the
watch indefinitely, but I am a little curious how
what morality is can be different from what moral
should be. Since morality is made of "should".

[*Hemidactylus*]

Ontology is what is. Science (or epistemology) helps us address what is.
Idealism and morality are strains of what ought do be offset from is.
Science or tech can provide means for understanding the basis of the gap
and a path towards ought or ideal but cannot be sole bases for choice nor
give us our underlying values.

In a rush but moral anthropology of cultural value difference is different
from metamorality.

[Burkhard]

An invitation for substantive discussion on an interesting topic - he
that doesn't catch on on TO :o)

My starter for ten would be here, rather then the more interesting but
also complicated (i.e. I still need to get my head around this argument)
second iteration above

I'd say there are a a number of problems with this specific way of
framing a secular ethical theory.

For starters, there is a whole history of arguments showing the
shortcomings of what is in essences utilitarian position, from Nozick's
"utility monster" (the rule would mean to submit lots and lots of
individuals to some pain if it makes one person with unlimited capacity
for well being (the utility monster) happy to Parfits addition paradox
to Iain King's analysis of aggregate utility (a particularly interesting
one in TO context as he reasons from an evolution perspective).

The second is the level of granularity. Sure, many, if not all, ethical
theories can agree on such a high level rule initially. The
discrepancies typically come up much further down the chain, and closer
to individual problems.

One of these is the issue of inclusiveness and equality (and what types
of equality)With other words, whose pain and well being counts? All
humans? All sentient being? All members of my family, tribe, country?
Past,present and future? Taking into account or not "innocence" (i.e.
does the well being of a criminal counts as much as that of the child
that is hurt as part of the crime - that's Jaqueline Laing's argument,
and while I disagree with her on many things, this argument had always
some force to me)

Partly overlapping, it does not give in itself any method to resolve
conflicts between subjects, when the pain of some is connected to the
happiness of others. But that's where ethical conflicts typically are.
It doesn't tell me if (some) animal experiments are ethically OK if they
have the potential to alleviate (some) human suffering, whether taxing
the rich to benefit the poor is OK etc etc.

That has been generally the experience with ethics committees in medial
research: everybody agrees on the high level rules, but as soon as
concrete decisions were asked for, everyone disagreed,evoking the very
same rules. One of the reason virtue ethics had a renaissance was that
experience.

So my problem with that approach is that one could, arguendo, quite
happily concede that all the valid ethical propositions in the Bible (or
any other religious authority) meet the benefit/harm test, and even
throw out those that apparently don't (though of course if you have a
punitive deity, you can get pretty much any utility function you like
for any form of behaviour - eat meat on Friday and suffer eternal pain
later... )But that still would allow the argument that the secular
version is insufficient, because it does not match the level of
granularity that religion based morality typically has.

[Wolffan]

On 23 Jun 2020, jillery wrote
(in article<g004ff1ht6qv56t6n...@4ax.com>):

morality, eh? here’s how to be moral: don’t be this guy.

"I'm very well aquainted with the seven deadly sins I keep a busy schedule
trying to fit them in
I'm proud to be a glutton, and I don't have time for sloth
I'm greedy, and I'm angry, and I don't care who I cross”

from ‘Mr. Bad Example’, Warren Zevon.
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/warrenzevon/mrbadexample.html

I liked the late Mr. Zevon. His songs were fun. ‘Mr. Bad Example’,
‘Excitable Boy’, ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’, ‘Roland the Headless
Thomson Gunner’, ‘Werewolves of London’, his version of ‘Knocking on
Heaven’s Door’ (“Let me in! Let me in!”; he had terminal, inoperable,
cancer when he recorded that, but was, umm, less than completely serious)
‘Jeannie Needs a Shooter’, and, of course, the immortal ‘My Shit’s
Fucked Up’, which for some reason didn’t get much airplay.
AB’s just an excitable boy.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Religion grounded morality in Abramic faiths are reducible to being a
cosmic Skinner box where perceived reward and punishment were collectively
applied to Israel then after Romans destroyed the Temple and Christianity
ascended deferred into heaven and hell. Not much of a way to sell a
morality. Lex talionis attenuated by secular concessions. Cafeteria style
choices. Ignore the bad stuff in Mosaic law because one can’t get away with
that crap any more.

A simple dichotomy of well being versus rights may serve to highlight the
problems of secular morality. There are always problems because
uncertainty.

We see problems with faith now in public health concerns being superseded
by rights of religious exercise. But same problem at bars for worshipers of
profane spirits.

That religious exercise becomes a public health nuisance in itself
evaporates any notion of morality in religion, NOMA kid gloves be damned to
hell.

[Burkhard]

But that cuts both ways. If one were to ground a secular ethics
ultimately in evolved instincts, as according to the second part of the
post, Paulogia tried to do, then it might well be possible to also
explain/justify the bad stuff in Mosaic law, as evolutionary theories of
religion do. Adherence to seemingly arbitrary prohibitions e.g. becomes
a form of "costly signalling" that promotes group cohesion and
collective, coordinated action, and with that increases wellbeing and
minimizes (overall) pain.

[jillery]

There are people who claim morality is absolute, and is written on our
hearts by God, and therefore is intuitive, self-evident, obvious.
Those who disagree are either willfully blind to God's word, or are in
league with Satan to actively oppose God's word.

For these people, there is no "should"; either you agree and are
moral, or you disagree and are immoral; there is no inbetween.

Since there are several T.O. posters who argue this way, either
explicitly or implicitly, I am surprised that you seem unaware of this
POV.

[jillery]

On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 16:11:04 +0100, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>jillery wrote:
>> My understanding is, most objections from pseudo-skeptics are not
>> based on the technical merits or the veracity of the claims to which
>> they object. Instead, their objections are based on their concerns
>> about a larger truth, ie moral truth. My impression is,
>> pseudo-skeptics larger concern leads them to conclude other posters
>> are immoral, or at least behave immorally.
>>
>> With that in mind, the following is relevant to their objections. It's
>> a link to a 42-minute response from Paulogia to two self-identified
>> Christian philosophers responding to his morality challenge:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plMOYOTSYlE
>>
>> Paulogia's Morality Challenge: Assume a list of moral truths based on
>> the Bible, and a list of moral truths based on minimizing pain and
>> maximizing well-being. If both lists are comprehensive and exhaustive,
>> there will be some truths which appear only on one list or the other,
>> and there will be some truths which appear on both lists. Given that,
>> the challenge is to identify a moral truth which appears *only* on the
>> first list, of moral truths from the Bible, to show that the Bible and
>> a belief in God are necessary for establishing moral truths.
>>
>> AIUI Paulogia's argument is, if an alleged moral truth does not
>> minimize pain and maximize well-being, then it doesn't qualify as a
>> moral truth. OTOH if an alleged moral truth minimizes pain and
>> maximizes well-being, then the Bible is unnecessary for qualifying it
>> as a moral truth. IOW establishing what minimizes pain and maximizes

>> well-being [is] sufficient and necessary for determining moral truths,

>> no God or Bible required.
>
>An invitation for substantive discussion on an interesting topic - he
>that doesn't catch on on TO :o)

Good luck with that.

You say you see problems with the way Paulogia framed his argument
above, one of them being just what counts as minimizing pain and
maximizing well-being. I agree on that point. I am aware of the
trolley-car mental exercises, of a series of unfortunate events
involving different people getting run over, with the subject having
to choose which ones meet their maker.

However, in Paulogia's defense, IIUC his morality challenge was not to
provide an exhaustive description of secular morality. Instead, it
was to test some religious people's claim, there can be no morality
without God.

Also, and pedantically, "don't eat meat on Fridays" doesn't qualify as
a Biblical moral truth.

What say you to Paulogia's second iteration below?

>> The Christian philosophers criticized Paulogia for conflating what
>> morality is with what morality ought to be (ontology), and with how we
>> know the difference (epistemology). They challenged Paulogia to first
>> more carefully describe his argument, in order to give them something
>> substantive to worry about.
>>
>> In response, Paulogia framed these questions:
>>
>> How can you demonstrate that morality requires ontological grounding
>> in the first place?
>>
>> What evidence can you provide for the existence of moral truths beyond
>> your personal intuition and appeals to normative ethics?
>>
>> If intuition is how we learn moral truths, on what basis can you say
>> that your intuition is right and my intuition is wrong?
>>
>> What observation about morality is insufficiently explained by
>> grounding in biology in the natural world?
>>
>> Please explain how, in a dispute situation, appealing to an
>> unrecognized authority is functionally different than merely
>> expressing a personal moral preference?
>>
>> My impression is, these questions would give T.O.'s pseudo-skeptics
>> something substantive to worry about. Of course, I could be wrong.

[Burkhard]

In my experience, those who add "objective" to "morals" either use it as
shorthand for "that's how interpret the rules I learned from mummy, and
I'll throw a tantrum should anyone claim they are not perfect" or as "I
really want to be mean to that person, but society frowns upon it if it
is just for selfish pleasure, so I'll claim I have to despite my
personal wish not to, because of objective morality". And then there are
some TO regulars who use it in ways unfathomable.

The term may play some legitimate role in meta-ethical discussions, as
soon as it pops up in questions what we should actually do, things are
likely to go bad.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Biblical command morality (not really objective given the assumed cultural
superiority thing) is “must” not “should”.

[Burkhard]

Yes, I get that. But the way he frames this argument was to say that we
need nothing else but a rule that is just as derivable/can be grounded
in a secular framework. While I agree with the conclusion, I don't agree
with the argument he offers. In particular, as you say, he claims his
argument shows a deity is not necessary - but he only shows this for the
general rule, not its instantiations. To test an analogy, a bit like
saying that as "ultimately" everything boils down to physics, we don't
need concepts from biology such as natural selection etc. True in one
sense, false in (most) others

>
> Also, and pedantically, "don't eat meat on Fridays" doesn't qualify as
> a Biblical moral truth.

True, that's later :o) OK, don't boil a kid in its mothers milk, and no
shellfish, you brute.

>
> What say you to Paulogia's second iteration below?

for that one I have to look at the video, as I found it more difficult
to see what the exact argument is - it seems like a version of the
Euthyphro dilemma, but if that's what it is, it changes the line of the
argument considerably. There is also a dangerous is/ought issue lurking
there, and it depends on the precise formulation if he avoids this - and
the most obvious way could get into conflict with his arguments against
intuition as basis for moral judgement

The video is quite long (and the transcript not helpful) , so it might
take me a bit

[jillery]

On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 21:23:59 +0100, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>

A word of warning: Paulogia's questions below come at the end of the
video. So the video provides no additional argumentation for them.
That may come in another video. My impression is this video is one of
a planned series between him and these Christian philosophers.

>>>> The Christian philosophers criticized Paulogia for conflating what
>>>> morality is with what morality ought to be (ontology), and with how we
>>>> know the difference (epistemology). They challenged Paulogia to first
>>>> more carefully describe his argument, in order to give them something
>>>> substantive to worry about.
>>>>
>>>> In response, Paulogia framed these questions:
>>>>
>>>> How can you demonstrate that morality requires ontological grounding
>>>> in the first place?
>>>>
>>>> What evidence can you provide for the existence of moral truths beyond
>>>> your personal intuition and appeals to normative ethics?
>>>>
>>>> If intuition is how we learn moral truths, on what basis can you say
>>>> that your intuition is right and my intuition is wrong?
>>>>
>>>> What observation about morality is insufficiently explained by
>>>> grounding in biology in the natural world?
>>>>
>>>> Please explain how, in a dispute situation, appealing to an
>>>> unrecognized authority is functionally different than merely
>>>> expressing a personal moral preference?
>>>>
>>>> My impression is, these questions would give T.O.'s pseudo-skeptics
>>>> something substantive to worry about. Of course, I could be wrong.
>>
>>

[Glenn]

Ugh. I see no "pseudo-skeptics" that need worry about your impressions, or some silly atheist blogger's either, for that matter.

[Mark Isaak]

Except when the person under consideration is a Republican.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[*Hemidactylus*]

Republicans are exempted.

[jillery]

On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 19:18:41 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

It's not my impression they need worry about. It's the questions. You
would know this if you comprehended written English.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 23 June 2020 18:59:59 UTC+1, jillery wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 07:36:22 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >One thinks of angels and pin-heads. I'm postponing the
> >watch indefinitely, but I am a little curious how

> >what morality is can be different from what moral[ity]

> >should be. Since morality is made of "should".

(Note: RC meant not "moral" but "morality" as altered above.)

> There are people who claim morality is absolute, and is written on our
> hearts by God, and therefore is intuitive, self-evident, obvious.
> Those who disagree are either willfully blind to God's word, or are in
> league with Satan to actively oppose God's word.
>
> For these people, there is no "should"; either you agree and are
> moral, or you disagree and are immoral; there is no inbetween.
>
> Since there are several T.O. posters who argue this way, either
> explicitly or implicitly, I am surprised that you seem unaware of this
> POV.

Well, in the Christian bible, (1) the entire religion
exists because of, and consists of, people who do wrong
instead of right and then God forgives them, and
(2) a lot of the book is describing right and wrong,
which doesn't support an interpretation that God has
already provided you with that information directly.
If he had then there would be no need to write it down.

I suppose that (1) implies that two different
moralities exist in Christianity, one with all the
"thou shalt not" things, and one that goes "just do
the best that you can".

Depending on who's telling you, Christianity may
still deny shellfish to Jewish believers while
allowing it for others.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, 23 June 2020 18:59:59 UTC+1, jillery wrote:
>> On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 07:36:22 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
>> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>>> One thinks of angels and pin-heads. I'm postponing the
>>> watch indefinitely, but I am a little curious how
>>> what morality is can be different from what moral[ity]
>>> should be. Since morality is made of "should".
>
> (Note: RC meant not "moral" but "morality" as altered above.)
>
>> There are people who claim morality is absolute, and is written on our
>> hearts by God, and therefore is intuitive, self-evident, obvious.
>> Those who disagree are either willfully blind to God's word, or are in
>> league with Satan to actively oppose God's word.
>>
>> For these people, there is no "should"; either you agree and are
>> moral, or you disagree and are immoral; there is no inbetween.
>>
>> Since there are several T.O. posters who argue this way, either
>> explicitly or implicitly, I am surprised that you seem unaware of this
>> POV.
>
> Well, in the Christian bible, (1) the entire religion
> exists because of, and consists of, people who do wrong
> instead of right and then God forgives them,

And of the city smiting and the ‘Crush your enemies, see them driven before
you, and hear the lamentation of the women!’ which include taking said
women and knowing them in biblical sense?

> and
> (2) a lot of the book is describing right and wrong,
> which doesn't support an interpretation that God has
> already provided you with that information directly.
> If he had then there would be no need to write it down.
>

And of logorrhea and hypergraphia seen in Mosaic scripture? Who the fuck
issues 613 commandments except a micromanager? A creepy stalking
micromanager who follows you inside your house?

https://youtu.be/YyZ4gGCCqss

>
> I suppose that (1) implies that two different
> moralities exist in Christianity, one with all the
> "thou shalt not" things, and one that goes "just do
> the best that you can".
>

Christianity itself can be seen as a bit of a Pauline walkback from the Law
to entice gentiles not fond of painfully modifying their genitals. But then
see James who was more parochial.

>
> Depending on who's telling you, Christianity may
> still deny shellfish to Jewish believers while
> allowing it for others.
>

Moral improvement comes from entirely secular jettisoning of biblical
claptrap. Those who act morally (whatever that means because well being is
simplistic procrustean bed as demonstrated by Le Guin with Omelas backdrop)
without a care for afterlife reward or punishment are more moral than
self-concerned Christians who need only have faith. The ring of Gyges or
Invisible Man provides the key. Remove the elf on the shelf panopticon and
see what the believers do.

[jillery]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 08:22:30 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, 23 June 2020 18:59:59 UTC+1, jillery wrote:
>> On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 07:36:22 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
>> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>> >One thinks of angels and pin-heads. I'm postponing the
>> >watch indefinitely, but I am a little curious how
>> >what morality is can be different from what moral[ity]
>> >should be. Since morality is made of "should".
>
>(Note: RC meant not "moral" but "morality" as altered above.)

Ok. And in a similar spirit, I note I meant not "moraility" in the
topic title but "morality".

>> There are people who claim morality is absolute, and is written on our
>> hearts by God, and therefore is intuitive, self-evident, obvious.
>> Those who disagree are either willfully blind to God's word, or are in
>> league with Satan to actively oppose God's word.
>>
>> For these people, there is no "should"; either you agree and are
>> moral, or you disagree and are immoral; there is no inbetween.
>>
>> Since there are several T.O. posters who argue this way, either
>> explicitly or implicitly, I am surprised that you seem unaware of this
>> POV.
>
>Well, in the Christian bible, (1) the entire religion
>exists because of, and consists of, people who do wrong
>instead of right and then God forgives them, and
>(2) a lot of the book is describing right and wrong,
>which doesn't support an interpretation that God has
>already provided you with that information directly.
>If he had then there would be no need to write it down.
>
>I suppose that (1) implies that two different
>moralities exist in Christianity, one with all the
>"thou shalt not" things, and one that goes "just do
>the best that you can".
>
>Depending on who's telling you, Christianity may
>still deny shellfish to Jewish believers while
>allowing it for others.

Your supposition sounds right to me, and is consistent with the schism
I described above. For all moral codes, there is an inevitable
tension between following the code to the letter, and following the
code's spirit. The New Testament has Jesus arguing strongly and
repeatedly for the spirit and against the letter.

[*Hemidactylus*]

If “moral ontology” is a fancy way to assume conclusion goddidit then fuck
that nonsense. People who respond to nullifidians by mocking our lack of
“sophisticated” “knowledge” of religion are akin to people who have told me
that my dislike for liver is wrong because I haven’t eaten proper liver as
they make it based on a traditional recipe. It becomes a tedious game of
whack-a-mole with “what about X (Buddhism etc)” thrown in. Sri Lanka and
Myanmar.

I don’t need religion nor want any preparation of liver. I don’t need
religion to preclude me from eating a census taker’s liver with fava beans
and a nice Chianti (slurp). Sympathy and realization of societal
consequence suffice, lacking in the brain of a Hannibal Lecter or a Travis
Marshall who plays out Revelation tropes with sadistic tableaux:

https://dexter.fandom.com/wiki/Travis_Marshall

Revelation has wrought more psychological and societal damage than the
bogey of secular humanism ever could.

[jillery]

Does the RCC consider not eating a census taker's liver as a
sacrifice? My impression is, not eating any liver is an indulgence, a
not-so-guilty pleasure.

[Burkhard]

you are barbarian, both of you. And I'm hungry now and yearn for fegato
alla fiorentina the way my landlady used to make them, and I can't get
them now, and therefore feel sad AND hungry, and it is all your fault.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Morality is at best intersubjective. Hard to see it as a discoverable truth
out there. Previous to living social beings with neural sufficiency to act
in manners considerate of otters well being, duty, virtue and consequence,
where did it exist? Our conscience is inscribed by society as circumscribed
by evolutionarily derived precursors of kinship and reciprocity. So yeah
the moral sense is written into us, just not by some jealous deity with
boundary issues. And it ain’t objective morality because no such unicorn
exists.

Maximize well-being or minimize harm is insufficient, though rights
consciousness may slightly overlap with minimizing harm. It fails on
preventing self-harm and often leads to Other harm because America. WD Ross
provided the grounding matrix in his pro tanto principles. If we truly
wished to minimize harm we would be antinatalists and cease having
children. Within a generation harm would cease as would morality. Good
riddance to both.

Bible “morality” exhibits the stopped clock phenomenon. I will be
unrepentantly Whiggish and say what it got wrong is on them and right
either by accident or a misattribution of moral advancement to God, Moses,
or Jesus. The snake surpassed them all and (s)he wasn’t even Satan. Just
looking out for human well being in the shackles of a jealous deity.

Sam Harris has wrought incalculable damage to the moral understanding of
atheists. It will take generations to undo this. Case in point...two
mullets flopping in a boat not knowing they are no longer in the river:

https://youtu.be/yrYLvaXCokg

Arguing hedonism devoid of Other consideration or Smith’s impartial
spectator.

The pursuit of well being as grounded in survival advantage at 7:20 here

https://youtu.be/jEdUN7qt1h4

reeks badly of misconstrued Darwinism that Huxley rightly railed against.
Excuse me a minute while I retch. Even Sam Harris went beyond grounding
morality in mere survival or cheap evolutionism.

14:55 here:

https://youtu.be/cP1lEuAuY3U

Basing his moral ontology on theistic philosophers who think morality
grounded in God (goddidit). Another retch. Sorry. Very emetic videos.

BTW I think it was Haidt who used Kahneman’s two systems view to say that
we quickly rise to judgments based on unconscious gut reads and then
“reason” to concoct or confabulate an after the fact justification for our
“moral” kneejerking. Maybe deliberative struggle can surpass this inherent
flaw in our architecture. If God is the author that’s on him. Haphazard
cobbling sounds more “responsible” to the outcome in our ancestors. And
free will doesn’t save the argument for God.

At 21:00 good point about distinguishing wiring diagram versus morality.
Kudos to believer dude. Other believer torpedos hedonism. Two points. Hmmm.
Then other guy trashes naturalism because GE Moore bully club, which
basically states Platonic Good is not analyzable and an unexpanded drop of
is/ought. Wow the definition of morality given by Paulogia really does
suck. No otter orientation or impartial spectator? Sounds right out of
success literature.

More to follow if I feel like it...

[Burkhard]

In the Terry Pratchett memorial category: if you do onto otters as
otters do unto you, small semi-aquatic mammals will leave you in peace

[*Hemidactylus*]

You’re welcome.

[erik simpson]

That's a whole notter subject.

[*Hemidactylus*]

And based on anotter mammal much larger and moos, udderly profound. Saw the
typo and left it in to get a rise. Damn iphone “keyboard”.

BTW in my experience Burk is a sloppy typer.

[erik simpson]

Either that, or he also has finger/keyboard mismatch.

[Burkhard]

Oh totally, the worst! But random mutations are rarely positive, as in
your case above which therefore in chez watt tradition merited
unattributed preservation, mine tend to be at best neutral, and mostly
negative.

[Burkhard]

No monocausal explanation will suffice. Migraine makes me type blind,
with little patience/ability to proofread. I learned blind typing in the
German army with a non-standard keyboard, so doing this with a UK
keyboard is bound to mean trouble. And I guess if I had been born a few
years later, I'd been diagnosed with dyslexia, but that wasn't a thing
yet when I grew up.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I do sophisticated hunt and peck improved over the defades. I had migraines
or TIAs with puberty that dissipated but have occasional scintillating
scotoma which is offputting but preferable to aura-headache-puke cycle in
early teens.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>>> An invitation for substantive discussion on an interesting topic - he
>>> that doesn't catch on on TO :o)
>>>

>> Religion grounded morality in Abramic faiths are reducible to being a
>> cosmic Skinner box where perceived reward and punishment were collectively
>> applied to Israel then after Romans destroyed the Temple and Christianity
>> ascended deferred into heaven and hell. Not much of a way to sell a
>> morality. Lex talionis attenuated by secular concessions. Cafeteria style
>> choices. Ignore the bad stuff in Mosaic law because one can’t get away with
>> that crap any more.
>
> But that cuts both ways. If one were to ground a secular ethics
> ultimately in evolved instincts, as according to the second part of the
> post, Paulogia tried to do, then it might well be possible to also
> explain/justify the bad stuff in Mosaic law, as evolutionary theories of
> religion do. Adherence to seemingly arbitrary prohibitions e.g. becomes
> a form of "costly signalling" that promotes group cohesion and
> collective, coordinated action, and with that increases wellbeing and
> minimizes (overall) pain.
>
Well I envision a third way. Paulogia makes some good critiques of the
somewhat cogent guys who rose to his challenge (is that guy on the left
Seth Rogan). One thing he didn’t quite address thoroughly was the part
about ability to “condemn other societies”. He did complain about Xmas
lights, but the condemnation part reeks of historic cultural imperialism.
Paulogia goes off the rails in his application of naturalism in invoking
Sam Harris. But seeking common ground seems a good start.

As for imposing values on another society this one has me dumbfounded:

“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile.
But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them,
and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect
gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us
all act according to national customs.”

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_James_Napier

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 14:49:04 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com>:

You otter be ashamed of yourselves.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[BiologyMajor]

On 6/23/2020 9:56 AM, jillery wrote:


Morality!

[jillery]

On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:10:16 -0400, BiologyMajor <L...@Umich.edu>
wrote:

>On 6/23/2020 9:56 AM, jillery wrote:
>
>
>Morality!

Give yourself a gold star.