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]

[Bust Nak]

If you do not understand what I am writing, why not ask me for clarification.

Well I have no idea what you stance is. From what I can gather:
You are an atheist.
The source of morality is primarily evolution, with society and thinking as secondly factors.
Genocide is wrong because decrease survival fitness for a given population of a given species.
Killing some grasshoppers is fine but kill too much to endagner grasshoppers is wrong.
The only wrong kind of killings are the illegal kind. (But there are no laws against killing grasshoppers.)
Nazis could be seen to be not wrong (is that the same as right?) if they didn't have a law against killing Jews.
Nazis could be seen to be not wrong if Jews were plotting to kill everyone.
You were annoyed when you were called a relativist, yet you deny the existence of any objective morals law.

[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.

It's hard for me to imagine something that tastes so nasty to me that I would want to stop anybody else eating it too, but instantc asked me to draw parallels between them. That no one acutally cares about grasshopper eating as strongly as murder doesn't change that wanting murder stopped because you don't like murder, is just like wanting grasshopper eating stopped because you don't like grasshopper eating.

It's not like you can deny that wanting murder stopped because murder is objectively wrong, is just like wanting grasshopper eating stopped because grasshopper eating is objectively wrong. You would of course deny that grasshopper eating is objectively wrong, just like I would deny that I mind grasshopper eating that much, the difference is, I can demostrate that I don't actually mind grasshopper eating that much.

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.

Again I point out it is the simularities that is relevant. No matter how many differences you can point out, it wouldn't eliminate the similarities. In particular any argument you could use to say morality is objective, I can with a straight substitution to change it to say taste is objective.

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.

Sure, as long as you acknowledge what you are saying here is no different to "just because!"

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.

But value without an evaluator is not absurd?

[keithprosser3]

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.

Just to clarify, I don't insist I'm right but it seems odd that the horrors of genocide or rape whatever can't be proven to be 'truly evil'. It annoys me to leave things like that, so I enjoy discussing the issues in general terms more than adversarial debate for its own sake. I admitted my inability to actually prove at this time anything pages ago:

[Replying to post 279 by keithprosser3]

I should have stopped then! I want to think about things before I post again, so I will get back to you, BN.

[otseng]

Macbeth, Act V, scene 5 lines 26-28

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[instantc]

But value without an evaluator is not absurd?

This seems absurd to me in the same sense that world without a creator may seem absurd at first glance. Thinking back my past moral experience, it seems undeniable that values exist even in the absence of a valuer. As a child, I used to think that bullying other kids is just good fun. It's not the case that my actions 'weren't wrong' back then in the absence of an valuer, but rather I was wrong not recognizing that the actions were wrong.

[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.

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.

Johnny boy,

Here's is an excerpt from a relevant article that explains the situation nicely:

"they (Nazis) were held responsible for atrocities committed against any civil population even if their crimes had been in accordance with the laws of the country where those crimes had been perpetrated. In other words, the world community did not accept excuses such as : "I only implemented national laws", or "I just did as I was told". The world community held that there are basic human rights of which individuals cannot be deprived by states or by political leaders."

The basic human rights referred to hereby are known as principles of natural law. Even though they are now codified, that hasn't always been the case. Thus, some of the convictions were made on basis of commonly understood moral principles, not written law. It becomes evident from here that things like murder are deemed wrong even when they are not prohibited under the law in a given situation.

[JohnA]

If you do not understand what I am writing, why not ask me for clarification.

Well I have no idea what you stance is. From what I can gather:
You are an atheist.
The source of morality is primarily evolution, with society and thinking as secondly factors.
Genocide is wrong because decrease survival fitness for a given population of a given species.
Killing some grasshoppers is fine but kill too much to endagner grasshoppers is wrong.
The only wrong kind of killings are the illegal kind. (But there are no laws against killing grasshoppers.)
Nazis could be seen to be not wrong (is that the same as right?) if they didn't have a law against killing Jews.
Nazis could be seen to be not wrong if Jews were plotting to kill everyone.
You were annoyed when you were called a relativist, yet you deny the existence of any objective morals law.

I was annoyed when Danmark continues to troll me.
I am also annoyed when Keith makes back hand personal insults.
Am annoyed that moderators aporove of Danmark's trolling me and Keith using outside references to insult people.
I am impressed that Danmark can make such illogical claims and nobody asks his to defend that. He must have some elevated status that I do not know of.
Am against apartheid, any form of it - blacks can be racists and practice apartheid as well. The thinking part.
Am for gay rights. The thinking part.
I do not know for sure is there is objective morals - evolution does give us something that is trotted to help survival.
Killing is not wrong. Murder is wrong, always. Killing that max extinction / suffering , and min survival in a population for a population would be wrong (due to evolutionarily ethics and empathy).
Morality = ethics and empathy. Sources are Evolution, society, thinking.
Am pro choice. The thinking part.
There is no such thing called objective moral law. That is Danmark being an obscurantist probably trading to avoid using objective moral values (values are always subjective)

What more is there to say. Nobody knows if there is such a thing as objective morals. It is a human subjective construct. We did get something from Evolution to help us survive - but given the extinction rate and no. of extinct species to date, am not sure how effective it is. Some form of morality has been observed in other animals too. I think morality is the wrong word to use. And I think illogical claims should be called out, same for back hand insults.

[Bust Nak]

I was annoyed when Danmark continues to troll me.
I am also annoyed when Keith makes back hand personal insults.
Am annoyed that moderators aporove of Danmark's trolling me and Keith using outside references to insult people.
I am impressed that Danmark can make such illogical claims and nobody asks his to defend that. He must have some elevated status that I do not know of.

You did say the Nazis could be seen as not wrong if they didn't have laws against genocide, and questioned if it was wrong to completely wipe a race out in self-defence. It is not suprising that it could be taken as justistification for genocide.

Am against apartheid, any form of it - blacks can be racists and practice apartheid as well. The thinking part.
Am for gay rights. The thinking part.
Am pro choice. The thinking part.

By "the thinking part," you are saying racism for example, is not wrong at first glance, only by careful analysis could you conclude that it is wrong due to the harm to survival fitness?

I do not know for sure is there is objective morals - evolution does give us something that is trotted to help survival...

[rearranged]

...There is no such thing called objective moral law. That is Danmark being an obscurantist probably trading to avoid using objective moral values (values are always subjective)

Right, so there is no such thing as objective moral value since value are always subjective. You are sure there is no objective moral laws but not sure on objective morals, so what is the difference between objective morals and objective moral laws?

Killing is not wrong. Murder is wrong, always. Killing that max extinction / suffering , and min survival in a population for a population would be wrong (due to evolutionarily ethics and empathy).

So genocide is wrong, but could be seen as not wrong, where it is legal for example? i.e. there is a distinction between being wrong and seen as wrong?

Morality = ethics and empathy. Sources are Evolution, society, thinking.

I agree with you here.

What more is there to say. Nobody knows if there is such a thing as objective morals. It is a human subjective construct. We did get something from Evolution to help us survive - but given the extinction rate and no. of extinct species to date, am not sure how effective it is. Some form of morality has been observed in other animals too. I think morality is the wrong word to use. And I think illogical claims should be called out, same for back hand insults.

I do think you are overly agressive and a tad over sensitive as far as illogical claims or insults goes, but I am guessing there is some history between you guys that I am not aware of.

[Danmark]

I was annoyed when Danmark continues to troll me.
I am also annoyed when Keith makes back hand personal insults.
Am annoyed that moderators aporove of Danmark's trolling me and Keith using outside references to insult people.
I am impressed that Danmark can make such illogical claims and nobody asks his to defend that. He must have some elevated status that I do not know of.

You did say the Nazis could be seen as not wrong if they didn't have laws against genocide, and questioned if it was wrong to completely wipe a race out in self-defence. It is not suprising that it could be taken as justistification for genocide.

The discussion of objective morals reminds me of a famous debate known as the Hart-Fuller debate at Harvard. Hart made good arguments for the point of view of a postitive law theorist. 'A judge interpreting such a law from a positivist viewpoint would look to a definition of the words in the statute.' Fuller makes the argument for natural law.
'The natural law view believes that the creation of law should be based on natural laws or common morals. Laws are viewed based on purpose, not on meaning of the words.'
[quotes from Wikipedia] There is much more to that debate of course. Here's a site to the 50th anniversary of the debate:
http://www.law.nyu.edu/conferences/hartfuller
[you may be amused to note that 'replied' is twice represented by 'replayed']

[instantc]

I was annoyed when Danmark continues to troll me.
I am also annoyed when Keith makes back hand personal insults.
Am annoyed that moderators aporove of Danmark's trolling me and Keith using outside references to insult people.
I am impressed that Danmark can make such illogical claims and nobody asks his to defend that. He must have some elevated status that I do not know of.

You did say the Nazis could be seen as not wrong if they didn't have laws against genocide, and questioned if it was wrong to completely wipe a race out in self-defence. It is not suprising that it could be taken as justistification for genocide.

The discussion of objective morals reminds me of a famous debate known as the Hart-Fuller debate at Harvard. Hart made good arguments for the point of view of a postitive law theorist. 'A judge interpreting such a law from a positivist viewpoint would look to a definition of the words in the statute.' Fuller makes the argument for natural law.
'The natural law view believes that the creation of law should be based on natural laws or common morals. Laws are viewed based on purpose, not on meaning of the words.'
[quotes from Wikipedia] There is much more to that debate of course. Here's a site to the 50th anniversary of the debate:
http://www.law.nyu.edu/conferences/hartfuller
[you may be amused to note that 'replied' is twice represented by 'replayed']

I think it's important to point out that a legal positivist can also be a moral objectivist, as long as he wants to keep morals and law separated. In fact, it seems that in the following quote Hart is employing morality to support legal positivism:

"What surely is most needed in order to make men clear sighted in confronting the official abuse of power, is that they should preserve the sense that the certification of something as legally valid is not conclusive of the question of obedience, and that, however great the aura of majesty or authority which the official system may have, its demands must in the end be submitted to a moral scrutiny"