Moral objective values...

[whisperit]

[font=Verdana]In one of his papers, Dr. William Lane Craig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lane_Craig) argues moral objective values is to say something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so. If God does not exist, what is the foundation for moral objective values?[/font][/url]

[JohnA]

Murder is wrong, because it is unlawful killing.

It might be useful to take into account that people have been convicted for unjustified killing, when (1) the acts they had committed were fully in accordance with the local laws and (2) before the concept of international crimes existed. In other words, these people have been convicted for murder without any positive legal base for such convictions. I believe this is the case with certain members of the Nazi administration. It then becomes evident that murder is not wrong because it's unlawful, but rather the other way around.

I am really not sure what you are saying.
But I do get suspicious when someone tries to argue using worlds like "I believe". That signals you have not checked and do not know if there are any evidence that supports your argument.

Maybe you should look up the definition of the English word called murder. That is the one that I'm using.
You can not convict someone of murder without a legal base. That is just absurd.

Am really hoping this is not your first step in formulating another one of your fallacious arguments:
Guilty until proven innocent by yourself (strict liability)
Science is based on faith (you ran from this without conceding)
Though Experiments outweighs concrete experiments (Galileo)
Arguments can be sound/valid without real word evidence. (Aristotle)
The immaterial 'mind' exist (am yet to see a reply from you)
Math Theorems determine scientific theories (Noether's theorem for Law of energy conservation)
Actual Infinity does not exist (Hilbert's Grand Hotel)

Is this your new: convict someone of murder without a legal base???

[Danmark]

Murder is wrong, because it is unlawful killing.

It might be useful to take into account that people have been convicted for unjustified killing, when (1) the acts they had committed were fully in accordance with the local laws and (2) before the concept of international crimes existed. In other words, these people have been convicted for murder without any positive legal base for such convictions. I believe this is the case with certain members of the Nazi administration. It then becomes evident that murder is not wrong because it's unlawful, but rather the other way around.

I am really not sure what you are saying.
But I do get suspicious when someone tries to argue using worlds like "I believe". That signals you have not checked and do not know if there are any evidence that supports your argument.

It certainly does not. It is simply a polite way of phrasing an argument; a way of avoiding sounding too dogmatic.

[instantc]

Is this your new: convict someone of murder without a legal base???

Be careful, I said that there was no positive legal base for the convictions. There was no applicable written law, on basis what which all the necessary convictions could be carried out, and thus some were based on so called natural law.

[JohnA]

Genocide is against law and international law (and UN protects it).

The Nazi's may not have had this genocide law.
The Nazi's may have thought that these group of Jews wanted to destroy them or the world.

So, there are reasons why genocide would be seen as 'not wrong'.

I posted all of this before.

And you were wrong before too. You actually wrote that if the Nazi's didn't have a law against genocide then it "would be seen as 'not wrong.'"
Unbelievable! Assuming the Nazi's had no such law, it would still be wrong and still be seen wrong even by them. They tried to keep what they were doing secret. They knew it violated objective moral law as well as the Geneva convention. Yet they did it anyway. Your advocacy here is the very kind of moral relativism that religionists like to accuse atheists of. They are wrong in general, but apparently your arguments provide an easy target.

Claims claims.

And you were wrong before too.

Assertion fallacy.

You actually wrote that if the Nazi's didn't have a law against genocide then it "would be seen as 'not wrong.'"

Correct, so why is that different to: The Nazi's may not have had this genocide law? ... therefore it would not be seen as 'not wrong'

Remember why I say it would not 'be wrong' = evolution. The 1st and most important source of ethics and empathy.
But, your use of words like 'unbelievable' is to me your way of constructing your 1st step of your straw man fallacy. And you did not disappoint me.

it would still be wrong and still be seen wrong even by them.

Why?

They knew it violated objective moral law

What on earth is that?
Objective morals law exist?
Did non-existent Jesus appear again and wrote this on a ship?

Your advocacy here is the very kind of moral relativism that religionists like to accuse atheists of.

What am I advocating?
Please tell me. What do you have a problem with? I do not read minds.
Did you not read where I wrote about evolution and min extinction and max survival? One of the 3 sources I provided for ethics and empathy. Or are you just trying again to straw man me?

But you are not an atheist or a monotheist - so why do you, would you care?
You are quick to humiliate the religious with your games about a non-existing god appearing to you saying he is not a god. And here you are accusing me, the atheist, of things I never wrote or said. How is that Logical Danmark? Is this your game, your way of straw manning me?

If you do not understand what I am writing, why not ask me for clarification., Why accuse me? Why the straw man Danmark?
This thing that you seem to be able to do, to know someone else's beliefs without them stating it is very dubious claim of yours. I sincerely hope that you do not use this on a day to day basis. I would not, I ask for clarification when something is not clear.

They are wrong in general, but apparently your arguments provide an easy target.

But if it is wrong, then it means your previous advocacy accusation was an error on your behalf. Please make up your mind Danmark. If you say there is some moral objective law, then let's hear it. Evidence, evidence, evidence. Come on. Nobody to date has solved this problem at all. And here you are doing 2 things:
2) Making claims that you once again will refuse to back up. But you use these very unsupported un-evidenced claim to:
1) Falsely Accuse me - Straw manning me about Relativism



Is this another one of your fallacious arguments - that you refuse to defend:
There is evidence for a non-existing god because he appears to you saying he is not a god
God's omniscience / human free-will is an old unresolved paradox but free-will does not exist.

Is this your argument:
You know that I'm a Relativist because you know that Objective Moral Laws exist?


I am not going to even ask you defend your claims. We both know you do not, because, I suspect, you can not.

[keithprosser3]

I'm not listening any more.

[JohnA]

Murder is wrong, because it is unlawful killing.

It might be useful to take into account that people have been convicted for unjustified killing, when (1) the acts they had committed were fully in accordance with the local laws and (2) before the concept of international crimes existed. In other words, these people have been convicted for murder without any positive legal base for such convictions. I believe this is the case with certain members of the Nazi administration. It then becomes evident that murder is not wrong because it's unlawful, but rather the other way around.

I am really not sure what you are saying.
But I do get suspicious when someone tries to argue using worlds like "I believe". That signals you have not checked and do not know if there are any evidence that supports your argument.

It certainly does not. It is simply a polite way of phrasing an argument; a way of avoiding sounding too dogmatic.

The only thing that is certainly here is that it is just your opinion.
I even get more suspicious when someone claims to believe to know someone else's beliefs. Not to mention confusing epistemological claims with dogma, using confusing language.
Are you claiming to know instantc's beliefs? Non-existent Jesus is telling you?

[JohnA]

Is this your new: convict someone of murder without a legal base???

Be careful, I said that there was no positive legal base for the convictions. There was no applicable written law, on basis what which all the necessary convictions could be carried out, and thus some were based on so called natural law.

I am still lost in your apparent (to me) confusion.

Convict someone of murder without a written legal law, but natural law?

What is natural law? As far as I know this is the laws of nature (scientific laws).

Help me here instantc, I am really not sure what you are arguing here.

[JohnA]

I'm not listening any more.

I posted all of this before. And suspect I will have to post it again to you since it is not written in play (act, scenes, lines) back hand insulting format. Are you also accusing me of Relativism, after I wrote about the 3 sources of ethics and empathy?

9 million babies die every year, every year.
99.9% of all living species that ever lived are extinct today.
What are you doing to reduce this? Sit back and offer back hand comments from plays to straw man people?

That my friend was low.
Actually, I found it disgusting.
But the irony is that it says more about you, your tactics, than it does about me.

Have a good day.

[Bust Nak]

This seems to me to be the reductio ad absurdum of subjectivism, why would you stop someone from eating a food that they like and choose to eat knowing what it is on the mere basis that you find it repulsive? That would never occur to me.

Consider that it is not just the food itself is repulsive, but the whole package of a person eating it that is repulsive. If it was just the taste itself that is repulsive, others eating it doesn't affect you at all; but if it was the whole package that is repulsive, others eating it would negatively affect you. Then it would occur to you that you want it stopped.

I would say that finding eating - say - grasshoppers repulsive is not a moral choice, and I am prepared to accept that such a thing is entirely subjective.

Right, that's because you don't actually find it all that repulsive. When it is repulsive enough that you want it stopped, you would be saying it is a moral choice. You would be saying it is wrong to eat grasshoppers.

But does that mean that finding genocide repulsive is also a subjective choice?

Taste and morality do share enough properties for both to be subjective.

The reason you might find eating grasshoppers repulsive is purely a personal, subjective thing, but the reason you find genocide repulsive is that it results in millions of unnecessary and unjustifiable deaths.

And I purely personally and subjectively find millions of unnecessary and unjustifiable deaths repulsive.

I don't think the reason you think grasshoppers are yucky is the same reason you think megadeaths are yucky. I think instead of looking at how they are the same we need to look at why they are different.

Of course there are differences. There are differences between why I find bitter gourd replusive and why I find ox tongue replusive; there are differences between why I find seal pup clubbing replusive and why I find tax evasion replusive. It is the simularities that make them all subjective, which is the topic here.

[keithprosser3]

I had to go back aways to find where this all started!
[Replying to post 315 by Bust Nak]

As instantc went on to point out, it is hard to imagine something that tastes so nasty to me that I would want to stop anybody else eating it. Obviously I would do something about someone eating human babies, but then it wouldn't be a matter of how babies taste, it would be the whole 'package' as you put it.

That is a materially different proposition and supports the idea that there is a significant difference between subjective 'taste' and 'moral judgement' rather than undermining it.

So I recognise what you are saying, BN, but I think it is going the wrong direction. It leads to the conclusion that the holocaust (I wish we had a different example) was not bad except as a matter of opinion. That seems absurd to me. Therefore - as it leads to an absurdity - the logic must be wrong even if one can't identify the logical flaw.