Peanut Gallery for Tanager & Wiploc on the Moral Argumen

[wiploc]

This is the peanut gallery thread for those who wish to comment on Tanager and wiploc's one-on-one discussion of the question of whether objective morality requires the existence of a god.

I couldn't fit all that in the title, above, so I just called it the moral argument.

Tanager and I won't post here until after our one-on-one thread closes. But we may respond to comments here in our one-on-one thread.

Exception: Once our one-on-one thread exists, one of us will come back here one time to post a link.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 13 by Divine Insight]

Is what true?

The example I gave about my not purposefully causing you harm and you not purposefully causing me harm.

Would you consider that true morality?

Or would you still consider that to be simply opinion?

"Simply" opinion?

Why are you so anxious to belittle or dismiss human opinion as somehow being unimportant?

I don't want to be harmed, because being 'harmed means that something I don't want to happen to me is going to happen to me. This is what the word 'harmed' means by definition.

So it makes sense that no one wants to be harmed.

It also makes logical sense that if I don't want you to harm me, then it only makes sense that I don't harm you. In other words, if I want to live in a world where I am not being harmed, it only makes sense for me to conduct myself in the way that I would like for the world to be. It wouldn't make much sense for me to go around harming other people if I'm going to complain about it when other people harm me.

So in many ways we can reduce this to 'simple' logic. Why bother bringing in any extra baggage of a concept called 'morality'?

What purpose does that concept serve other than to be able to point figures at someone's behavior and proclaim that they are immoral?

The very concept of 'morality' is ultimately a concept of passing judgement on whether we feel that someone's actions live up to our standards of how we might prefer life to be.

You might say that not wanting to be harmed appears to be an objective fact of reality. And I would agree with that notion. However, that doesn't mean that it's 'wrong' to harm someone beyond the mere fact that humans would subjectively judge that action to be 'wrong' because humans don't like it.

In fact, this is precisely what morality in religion is all about. Supposedly immoral acts in religion are actions that God subjectively judges to be 'wrong'.

Morality is judgement. Period amen.

That's all it is.

If there's no one passing judgements, then who's to say that anything is 'immoral'.

Animals prey on each other, they prey on the young offspring of others, they eat their eggs, chase them out of territories, etc. Is any of that behavior 'immoral'?

I would imagine that if the animals could grasp the concepts of human language they would agree that all the nasty things that happen to them are 'immoral'. In other words, they would join in the subjective pool of agreeing that being harmed is not a desirable event.

So we have pretty much established that it's very likely that no living animals that is sensitive to pain and suffering likes to be harmed.

That is an objective fact.

But passing judgement on those who harm (i.e. labeling them as being immoral) requires a subjective judgement.

In fact, in this sense a higher level of 'morality' would indeed require a higher conscious being to pass that judgement. Because morality requires judging.

So yes, if there exists a higher consciousness entity that passes the ultimate judgements, then there would be an absolute moral 'authority', but even that supreme authoritarian would be making a subjective judgement call.

There's no getting around it.

There cannot be an absolute objective morality because all morality requires subjective judgements.

Consider the Biblical God. "Thou shalt have no other God's before me". That's not absolute objective morality. That's about as self-centered egotistically subjective as a moral judgement can possibly be.

So even if there was a God, morality would still be 'simply an opinion'. All that would have taken place is that the opinion was raised from the level of humans and handed over to some authoritarian godhead. But it would still just be a subjective opinion.

There's no getting around it.

I believe you, yourself, have proclaimed that there can be no morality without a conscious mind. The reason for this is because there needs to be a mind to make subjective judgements.

Moving the mind up to some imaginary God doesn't change the fact that it would still be 'just the opinion' of some conscious mind.

Trying to push the concept of morality onto a higher consciousness doesn't solve the problem. All it does is push the problem out of the realm of reality. And there's simply no need to do that. We can simply recognize that morality is indeed the subjective opinions of humans. And we don't even all share the same views on what a 'perfect morality' would even be.

Humans will probably argue about that until they finally become extinct.

Or possibly humans will evolved beyond such petty subjective arguments. It's really impossible to say what the future of humans might actually bring. We're still basically Apes with more technology than we know how to handle. The most likely scenario is that we will hurt ourselves with our technological toys. Either accidentally, or through negligence, or humanity forbid, due to actual war.

In the meantime arguing over morality isn't getting us anywhere. It's actually causing more animosity than good.

[peterk]

This is hard work!

I pretty much agree with everything you've said, and yet you have still missed my point. For instance, when you say this:

Don't you think it's important when discussing issues of morality to recognize and acknowledge that not all actions of behaviors should be judged in terms of morality?

This is also important when attempting to assert that there exists an objective morality.

If I have a choice before me of whether to drink apple juice, or orange juice, should we think that there exist some objective morality that determines which choice is the more moral choice?

...I want to scream, "Absolutely, yes, of course, definitely, 100%." This illustrates perfectly the point at which we are ships in the night. Of course drinking apple or orange juice is not a moral issue. If that's what you heard me saying, you have completely misunderstood. I would ask you to go back through my very first post carefully. There you will see that my fundamental starting point was the distinction between matters of taste and matters of truth. Juice flavours are obviously a matter of taste, and therefore I would have no further interest in them.

This alone is a problem with any discussions of morality. I'm looking at the question of civil unions (for example) as being as inert to a concept of morality as whether a person chooses to drink apple juice or orange juice.

OK, then again I would repeat my previous comment. Let's forget civil unions. This will be a rabbit hole issue, and I wish now I hadn't made that passing comment about you, me and poor Fred. All I'm interested in at this point is the question from my first post: is there any topic at all that you would label "moral" and which is a matter of truth? Anything? Be as fringe as you like. Globalisation; Israeli West Bank occupation; Wall Street fraud; Hitler; nose picking...

Please note that I'm not trying to argue anything here. Treat my question as a desire not to misunderstand you. I want to be a listener, pure and simple.

You have actually made some good points: if morality is objective then (1) what about the invariable disagreements that come up? and (2) how would that apply when expanded to the animal kingdom at large. I feel like I've started discussing them and would love to further explore them. But we need to start by actually understanding each other, and I don't believe we are there yet.

[Divine Insight]

This is hard work!

Not only that, but I question whether it's worth our time? In other words, is the topic of morality even worth wasting time on?

And I hope to make this question clearer in my replies to the following quotes:

OK, then again I would repeat my previous comment. Let's forget civil unions. This will be a rabbit hole issue, and I wish now I hadn't made that passing comment about you, me and poor Fred. All I'm interested in at this point is the question from my first post: is there any topic at all that you would label "moral" and which is a matter of truth? Anything? Be as fringe as you like. Globalisation; Israeli West Bank occupation; Wall Street fraud; Hitler; nose picking...

This is a huge problem because it already implies that some issues are indeed very likely to be extremely questionable when it comes to labeling them as moral or immoral.

In answer to your question I see no reason to label anything as moral or immoral. But I can speak to issues of what I personally consider to be right or wrong results of actions.

You mention things like Wall Street Fraud and Hilter. I would subjectively agree with you that those things are not 'good'. They clearly 'harm' people, and I would agree that when someone is 'harmed' we humans consider that to be 'wrong'.

This all sounds like it's building up to become support of a concept of 'morality'. But let's keep in mind that 'morality' is a judgement of the character of a person. It's not a concept of the result of actions that harms.

To make this crystal clearly we don't consider natural disasters to be 'immoral' events. Natural disasters do not act out of conscious volition. Therefore we can't even bring the concept of 'morality' until we can have someone to blame for having willfully and knowingly harmed someone. In fact, we even need to go further and say that the person needs to be in sound mind in order to be judged to be 'immoral'. For example, if someone contracts rabies and goes out of their mind and kills a bunch of people, we wouldn't necessarily conclude that they were an 'immoral' person. We would simply say that they were mentally incapacitated and therefore not 'morally' responsible for what they had done. Just like we can't claim that a storm is 'immoral'.

So now, when you bring someone like Hitler into the picture and you ask me to judge him morally, I can't say. All I can say is that the I personally agree that the actions he had commanded and authorized were not 'good' (i.e. many innocent people were harmed). Before I can say that Hitler was 'immoral' I would need to know his mental state. For all I know he could have been mentally ill, and that would automatically excuse him from being branded as an 'immoral' person.

Consider the recent school shooting in Parkland Florida. Was that an 'immoral' act? Who can say?

If 17 children were killed in that school do to a natural disaster no one would be talking about 'morality'. Same would be true if a wild animal had come onto the school grounds and killed 17 children. A highly unlikely event to be sure, but we can certainly imagine it as a pure philosophical scenario. The concept of 'morality' doesn't come into play until there is a conscious actor who supposedly has free will volition that we can pass judgement on. And even then what good is the concept of morality other than it allows us to pass judgement on a person's supposed intent or character.

So now the concept of 'morality' is reduced to the question of whether or not we want to judge Nicholas Cruz to be an immoral person. That's all the concept of morality is good for. It has no other use or value.

So the concept of morality is nothing more than a human construct to pass judgement on the character of others. That's all it amounts to.

What practical value does it have? Let's say that we judge Nicholas Cruz to be an immoral person. What is gained by that?

Has that changed anything or helped anything? I don't think so. Therefore the concept of morality is a totally useless concept that has absolutely no practical value at all. It's nothing more than a way to pass judgement on other people.

So the concept is utterly useless, even if we choose to embrace and support it.

Please note that I'm not trying to argue anything here. Treat my question as a desire not to misunderstand you. I want to be a listener, pure and simple.

Well, in your previous posts to this thread you had outlined a line of reasoning that you stated had was one of the reasons that lead you to believe there is a God. I simply pointed out why that particular line of reasoning was faulty.

You have actually made some good points: if morality is objective then (1) what about the invariable disagreements that come up? and (2) how would that apply when expanded to the animal kingdom at large. I feel like I've started discussing them and would love to further explore them. But we need to start by actually understanding each other, and I don't believe we are there yet.

For clarity my position is as follows:

1. Not all actions can be said to be objectively right or wrong.
(you have already agreed on this point)

2. The concept of morality is not a concept of right or wrong, but rather a concept of intent of willful volition carried out by a sound mind.
(I'm not sure where you stand on this point, but if you agree, then you should also necessarily agree that morality requires that intent be considered and actions alone cannot constitute morality.)

3. My final point is that a concept of morality is totally useless in terms of having any practical value. All it amounts to is a judgement on another person's character. Keep in mind that if the actor is not of sound mind, then it's highly questionable whether it makes any sense to brand them as being immoral.
(I would like to hear your thoughts on this point.)

Question: If all that a concept of morality is useful for is passing judgements on the character of others, then where is there any practical value or usefulness in that?

As an example, what good does it do anyone to say that Nicholas Cruz is an immoral person? How does that change or help anything?

I don't see where the concept of morality has any practical value.

[William]

[Replying to post 21 by Divine Insight]

"Simply" opinion?

Why are you so anxious to belittle or dismiss human opinion as somehow being unimportant?

I am not anxious to do so at all. It is just that most often when people argue 'it is only opinion' that this is generically understood as that and regarded as something to belittle or to dismiss as somehow irrelevant.

When something is 'just an opinion' it is usually considered secondary to the objective reality of things which are not taken as 'simply opinion'. but as matter of fact.

As you made clear in post #6;

The only problem with the idea that 'morality' is sourced in a God who is itself a subjective conscious entity, is that then even God's morality is nothing more than the subjective opinion of the God. So this still wouldn't make it 'objective' or 'absolute'.

Thus if we are now to take your argument that to belittle or dismiss human (or any other able entities) opinion as somehow being unimportant, as not being such a good idea, then your original argument in post #6 can be placed to one side.

In that, there is no problem with the idea that morality is sourced in a God who is itself a subjective conscious entity because even that the GODs morality is the subjective opinion of the God, there is nothing in that which needs to be belittled or dismissed as unimportant.

Now it should be clear to the reader following our interaction here that we both agree that 'objective' or 'absolute' morality does not appear to exist, which is another reason I moved towards asking you where you position yourself regarding your opinion about true morality and whether you had an opinion on the example I gave, which would agree that the example could be regarded as a case of true morality.

On that, you have this seemingly round-about way in which to analyze the idea that not harming others should be seen as an act of morality or not.

So it makes sense that no one wants to be harmed.

I myself specifically used the phrase "purposefully harmed" so as to distinguish between the normal natural harm we all experience, as opposed to the harm human beings can do to each other purposefully. With the intent to harm.

It also makes logical sense that if I don't want you to harm me, then it only makes sense that I don't harm you. In other words, if I want to live in a world where I am not being harmed, it only makes sense for me to conduct myself in the way that I would like for the world to be. It wouldn't make much sense for me to go around harming other people if I'm going to complain about it when other people harm me.

Of course it makes sense. Speaking specifically about what makes sense as opposed to what does not make sense may be another way of speaking about what is immoral and what is not.

You appear to be arguing that we decide not to purposefully harm others because this would be logical since then we would invite others to purposefully harm us in return, does not in itself mean we are NOT choosing this from a moral sense. Being logical does not mean that morality is not involved in the decision.

As I pointed out in my previous post, this then reduces to "Divine Command Theory" where anything the God decides to do is automatically 'moral' simply because God himself decided to do it. This would then still be a 'subjective morality' that changes dynamically depending on the mood the God happens to be in at the moment.

And as I replied to that argument, I am not arguing for the idea of "Divine Command Theory" or 'subjective morality' being a case of what mood one is influenced by at any given time.

My question was simply asking you whether you considered that I not purposefully harming you and you not purposefully harming me could be considered as true morality.

You seem to be saying now that it is simply a matter of 'good logical decision' which does not have to be called 'moral' or associated in any way with 'morality' - 'true' or otherwise.

Another way to look at this is that this then boils down to absolute moral 'authority', rather than an absolute objective morality.

The problem with this is that then the very concept of 'morality' becomes a concept of authority. Whoever has the highest power automatically has the final say in what they subjectively deem to be moral or immoral. Including allowing for exceptions when the moral authority himself decides to violate his own previous declarations of what constitutes morality.

So thus, it appears you are arguing that the very idea of morality and immorality come from human authorities rather than from logic, and thus people can be inclined towards thinking that ideas of morality presented by authoritative sources are to be considered a 'given' regardless as to whether these are based upon logic or not.

From that I would be inclined to think your answer to my question is that our choosing not to purposefully harm one another comes only from logical thinking and has nothing to do with 'morality' and need not be seen as 'moral' but simply as 'logical'.

And perhaps in that way, one can separate oneself altogether from thinking in terms of morality since those ideas stem from authoritative institution and are demonstrably ineffective and pointedly counter-intuitive and logically faulty.

Obviously if there exists an entity that is omnipotent and no one could resist or defeat his power of authority over them, then that authority has the final say in everything. But is that truly compatible with a concept of 'morality'?

I wouldn't think so.

So any so-called 'morality' that is sourced in a conscious entity who gets to decide subjectively what he deems to be moral or immoral on the fly seems to fly in the very face of any concept of objective morality.

The problem definitely seems to revolve around the use of the word 'morality' as far as I can tell from your argument.

If it was that the GOD used logic and opinion, would you find this more to your overall liking?

My own theology doesn't align very well with the type of GOD idea you are arguing against anyway, as you are arguing against the Abrahamic idea of GOD and specifically the Christian idea of GOD.

As an example, my theology sees various 'levels' of GOD-consciousness so ideas of those being 'all powerful' and 'all knowledgeable' are relative to the positions those individuate aspects of GOD-consciousness are experiencing.

In that, the opinions and logic of those individuals are also relative to those positions.

As you may be aware, I think of the Earth as a self conscious creative entity, and see 'her' as 'the local GOD' from which we directly descend from as it were. We are directly aspects of 'her' consciousness divested into a myriad of forms.

As such I understand that harm is an unavoidable part of that process and do not consider the natural harm to being purposeful.

When it gets to humanity, and the purposeful harm being done, I do not consider this to be how the Earth Entity wants us to behave but 'she' still understands that this is how we will most often choose to behave dues to a number of reasons.

But how is the authority of the Earth Entities opinion as to what 'she' wants, transmitted to us?

Is it through logic?

Is it through human authority?

Is it through a personal connection a human being can have with 'her' that one can understand the logic of us not doing purposeful harm to each other and the planet which sustains us?

And if this God-consciousness must conform to some absolute objective morality himself, then he cannot be the 'source' of that absolute objective morality.

If you - using logic and personal opinion - understand that it is best to choose NOT to purposefully harm others, are you conforming to something which is not sourced in yourself?

Is changing the understanding of 'morality' to that of 'personal opinion based in firm logic' making the idea more something which is sourced in oneself rather than in something which has been forced upon you from an outside influence/authority?

My own theology states that all that is, has The First Source Consciousness as the reason for its existing.
If nothing else existed except the FSC, then there would be no requirement for logic, or personal opinion, or ideas of morality etc.

All these come from the things being created and experienced after the fact. Thus they are developments of necessity, depending upon what was created and experienced.

So regardless of whether they are called 'opinions' or 'logic' or 'true morality' these are simply labels for the same thing.

The very concept of 'morality' is ultimately a concept of passing judgement on whether we feel that someone's actions live up to our standards of how we might prefer life to be.

But even as you decide to use words such as 'logic' and 'opinion' to replace 'morality' this in itself does not do away with judgement one passes against other peoples positions.

You yourself are constantly judging the idea of the Abrahamic GOD and in doing so you are weighing that idea up against your own standards and finding it inferior.

You might say that not wanting to be harmed appears to be an objective fact of reality. And I would agree with that notion.

Purposefully harmed, yes. I am not sure though that you really agree with that notion.

However, that doesn't mean that it's 'wrong' to harm someone beyond the mere fact that humans would subjectively judge that action to be 'wrong' because humans don't like it.

So are you saying then that it is 'wrong' to call something 'wrong' because you personally don't like it?
For example, if the majority of the world decided to judge the idea of the Abrahamic GOD as 'wrong' would that actually be the 'right' call? I ask because you seem to always be arguing this as if you are 'right' about it.
Is your logic-based opinion on this true or false or neither true nor false?

In fact, this is precisely what morality in religion is all about. Supposedly immoral acts in religion are actions that God subjectively judges to be 'wrong'.

Morality is judgement. Period amen.

That's all it is.

So then are we to suppose that what you are claiming here is that judgement is 'wrong'? Is this because it is based on 'morality' which is not 'logic-based'? Is 'logic-based' judgement 'right'?

Could we equally express "logic based opinion is 'judgement'. Period. Amen."?

If there's no one passing judgements, then who's to say that anything is 'immoral'.

So is the act of passing judgement purposefully harming others?

What if we turned a blind eye to those purposefully harming others/ourselves, would their actions thus not be 'moral or immoral'? What would their actions be then? Would it be logical to allow for such a thing to be the standard in which all live under?

How do you think such a standard would affect the way life is lived, should people no longer do this? If you were to adopt this philosophy, how would that change your present expression here on this forum?

Animals prey on each other, they prey on the young offspring of others, they eat their eggs, chase them out of territories, etc. Is any of that behavior 'immoral'?

The behavior is natural and in that, nature appears to find the balance so that the behavior goes on but does not radically alter the natural equilibrium enough to tip the scales towards disaster.

Animals generally do not have concepts of 'good' and 'evil' but neither do they go out of their way to behave in a manner which puts the rest of their group at risk. Some animals will even cull such troublesome perpetrators from their group when such behavior does occur.

I would imagine that if the animals could grasp the concepts of human language they would agree that all the nasty things that happen to them are 'immoral'. In other words, they would join in the subjective pool of agreeing that being harmed is not a desirable event.

Humans do not even do this. Most grasp that there are nasty things which happen to them which they don't assign as being 'immoral'. When it comes to purposefully harming others - most humans definitely DO consider such as being immoral. There is nothing untoward about thinking along such lines, as far as I can tell, and your argument so far hasn't altered my opinion on that.

My question still stands in relation to that as well.

So we have pretty much established that it's very likely that no living animals that is sensitive to pain and suffering likes to be harmed.

That is an objective fact.

But passing judgement on those who harm (i.e. labeling them as being immoral) requires a subjective judgement.

In fact, in this sense a higher level of 'morality' would indeed require a higher conscious being to pass that judgement. Because morality requires judging.

So unless you are arguing that human beings have not developed this "higher level of 'morality'" because we are effectively 'higher level beings' than most of the other animals...but that expression itself is loaded enough to spin the argument off on another tangent...I prefer to see it as a 'wider appreciation for the experience of living'.

Put another way, we have developed strong logical opinions as to why it is best not to purposefully harm others, and those opinions are generally known as 'morals'.

And yes - these are used to make judgement, and just because we have also developed complex language in line with our evolution, does not mean that somehow 'the ability to judge' is the problem. Human authority is a natural aspect of this evolution of conscientiousness. Not every human being is at the same level or on the same page as every other, and some would still like to be able to purposefully hurt others indiscriminately and with no fear of penalty for doing so.

So yes, if there exists a higher consciousness entity that passes the ultimate judgements, then there would be an absolute moral 'authority', but even that supreme authoritarian would be making a subjective judgement call.

There's no getting around it.

There cannot be an absolute objective morality because all morality requires subjective judgements.

I do not understand why you are arguing that in replying to what I have said because I am not arguing that there IS objective morality other than in regard to our objective situation.

And in that, other that in any subjective situation where objectivity exists as well.

IF one were to exist in a reality which only you as a subjective being existed, where nothing else existed which could be deemed as objective, THEN 'the problem of morality' - the 'problem of having to be logical and have an opinion' or 'make judgement' would not occur.

I believe you, yourself, have proclaimed that there can be no morality without a conscious mind. The reason for this is because there needs to be a mind to make subjective judgements.

Correct. Thus "morality'. But I have also said that there has to also be 'things' in which to experience. Consciousness is consciousness, and the mind is where 'things' are created in order to explore and experience, and thus 'morality' (opinion/logic/judgement) happen...based of course, on my theology which states that all 'things' are within the mind of The First Source Consciousness.

Moving the mind up to some imaginary God doesn't change the fact that it would still be 'just the opinion' of some conscious mind.

Be that as it may, I can remind you that the expression 'just opinion' is not in itself to belittle or dismiss 'opinion', be that human or GOD. What is more the focus is if one opinion can be more useful than another in relation to truth.

This is why debate exists.

One can have the opinion that GODs are 'imaginary' but not without also admitting they might well exist. One is best then to be logical in that regard, IF Gods exist, then what is the logical conclusion one could make in regard to that, based upon what is known to exist and how that itself is understood.

Trying to push the concept of morality onto a higher consciousness doesn't solve the problem.

Nor does it complicate the 'problem'. Working from the bottom up simply allows one to disregard the possibility that we have access to an inherent ability which comes from a less direct source than ones personal individual logic, opinion and judgment.

If one adds to this reasoning that in relation to 'indirect source' this has been a predominantly reflective reasoning which lead to the idea of GODs (imagined or not) that some humans have taken advantage of this idea to manipulate others so as to become the medium between the individual and the indirect source and in assuming the 'mouthpiece' have placed words of authority as to what is to be morally accepted and what is not, there is no excuse I can logically come up with as to why I should denounce all notion of GOD on account of that.

One can indeed reach a place of understanding that, that which seemed 'indirect' took on that role due to the manipulative medium which established 'ownership' of the idea of GOD and that the individual can - if they so choose - abandon the medium and get their interaction far more directly from the source itself.

All it does is push the problem out of the realm of reality. And there's simply no need to do that. We can simply recognize that morality is indeed the subjective opinions of humans. And we don't even all share the same views on what a 'perfect morality' would even be.

Reality on its own seem not to be able to teach the individual true morality, as one can argue that we are just animals and animals do not have this sense of 'morality' in them anyway and they get along just dandy right?

What humans are dealing with is something far wider and more complex than what other animals are dealing with. This is why humans do not think of themselves as they think of animals. It would be illogical to do so, or to even argue that essentially we are just 'animals' and should drop our capacity for judgement, for critical thinking, for anything which is not purely naturally attainable through any means if only we dropped 'morality' from our collective psyche and adopt more primitive behavior.

Humans will probably argue about that until they finally become extinct.

Nature has a great deal to teach us, but as you point out, it cannot really teach us morals, or how to live according to nature in harmony with it. You appear to be arguing that this is because of 'morality' being a human construct mostly derived from religious institution. This is quite narrow as far as I can tell. As much as we can point to the obvious twisting of good logical morality which has come through religious instruction, we cannot altogether paint the whole process with that same brush, as there have been actually good logical morality which any contrary opinion against might well be judged truthfully as incorrect.

At least with political and religious institution humans have been able to develop such things, not that one can argue these are all perfect. Atheism, as you know, does not concern itself with such things. Something thus had to evolve to deal with that problem, logically speaking.

Or possibly humans will evolved beyond such petty subjective arguments. It's really impossible to say what the future of humans might actually bring. We're still basically Apes with more technology than we know how to handle. The most likely scenario is that we will hurt ourselves with our technological toys. Either accidentally, or through negligence, or humanity forbid, due to actual war.

I sincerely do not think that morality is a petty subject which has to be ignore in order for humanity to evolve sufficiently to survive itself.

We're still basically Apes...

No we are most definitely not.

...with more technology than we know how to handle.

True morality might therefore gift us with the know-how. Science gave us the technology but is unable to give us the morality.

In the meantime arguing over morality isn't getting us anywhere. It's actually causing more animosity than good.

Morality of itself is not that which is causing animosity. Animosity is causing animosity.

Personally my own theology respects the potential humans have to get their act together, but also acknowledges that this particular experience of this physical universe is simply a phase, and if we as a species do not 'make it' in terms of getting a foot-hold, then all is not lost. We will have the opportunity as a species to correct waywardness in the next phase as well as it is all an ongoing process of reintegration into that which we have been impermanently lost to. Too much emphasis on just the physical is of no more help than not enough.

So with that in mind, I personally have no problem in thinking that me doing no purposeful harm to you and you doing no purposeful harm to me is a true representation of morality - human moral uprightness.


If we were to agree together on that and be on the same page, then there would naturally be no animosity.

[Divine Insight]

If we were to agree together on that and be on the same page, then there would naturally be no animosity.

There's no need to bring animosity into the conversation. That certainly wan't my intent. This is just a natural consequence of this type of debate. You are arguing for a absolute "true morality" therefore you necessarily need to dismiss anything that fails to support that view as being inferior.

The problem is that morality really has very little to do with concepts of right and wrong, but rather it has to do with intent. Read my previous post to Peterk. So even if you could argue for objective ideas of right and wrong, that still wouldn't support a concept of morality, or a need for such a concept.

So with that in mind, I personally have no problem in thinking that me doing no purposeful harm to you and you doing no purposeful harm to me is a true representation of morality - human moral uprightness.

If we were to agree together on that and be on the same page, then there would naturally be no animosity.

Forget the emotions. There's no animosity at my end. If there's none at your end then why bother bringing it up?


The bottom line is quite simple. Even if we can define a meaningful concept of morality (i.e. passing judgement on whether someone's actions should be considered moral or immoral), of what use is the concept?

Unless you are simply interested in passing judgements on other people for the sake of branding them to be either moral or immoral people then concept has no useful or practical purpose.

So why bother spending vast amounts of time trying to push for a concept of morality when it has not other utility.

I have no interest in passing judgements on whether I think someone is a moral or immoral person. So the concept of morality is totally useless for me.

It would only be useful for people who are interested in passing character judgements on others. I would argue that any judgements they pass are necessarily subjective opinions in any case.

Consider the example I just offered to Peterk. Should we brand Nicholas Cruz as being an immoral person? And if we do, what practical value has our judgement of him achieved?

And what if we're wrong? What if we assumed free will and a sound mind, but one or both of those crucial elements don't apply? Then what? Then clearly our moral judgement was in error.

The fact, that we all agree that the actions that he carried out were 'wrong', doesn't automatically equate to him having made a voluntary sound decision to carry out the act. Perhaps he's mentally ill and has no 'true free will'. Then what? Then he becomes no different from a natural disaster. Neither moral nor immoral, just a random act of nature.

So the concept of morality is utterly useless in any case. It has absolutely nothing productive or useful to offer us.

It's simply a concept that we don't even need. And it necessarily must boil down to a subjective opinion in the end based on a guess we make concerning how sound a person's mind was at the time they carried out specific actions, and whether or not they actually had free will volition at the time or if they had fallen victim to some sort of brain disorder or other delusions or hallucinations, etc.

[Divine Insight]

We're still basically Apes...

No we are most definitely not.

Why be in denial of what science has shown us to be true?

Humans are indeed a member of the Great Apes family of primates.

Trying to pretend otherwise is to do nothing more than reject the facts.

If we're going to have meaningful conversations let's at least embrace what is known to be true.

[William]

[Replying to post 26 by Divine Insight]

You misunderstood me. I was not arguing that we were not biologically related. I was arguing that we were not 'still basically apes' in regard to the larger context of what is being discussed.

If you can show me where apes are 'basically human' perhaps your complaint could be shown to have some merit.

If we're going to have meaningful conversations let's at least keep the context together rather than go off on such unnecessary tangents which have nothing to do with what is actually being discussed.

[William]

[Replying to post 25 by Divine Insight]

There's no need to bring animosity into the conversation. That certainly wan't my intent.

It was you who brought it into your argument.

This is just a natural consequence of this type of debate.

It wasn't about the differences we are having re the discussion. Your argument addressed something else and that was what I was commenting on.

You are arguing for a absolute "true morality" therefore you necessarily need to dismiss anything that fails to support that view as being inferior.

Then you are saying that you don't agree that my not purposefully causing you any harm and you not purposefully causing me any harm can be said to be true morality?

Even that being the case, there is still no need for any animosity.

The problem is that morality really has very little to do with concepts of right and wrong, but rather it has to do with intent. Read my previous post to Peterk. So even if you could argue for objective ideas of right and wrong, that still wouldn't support a concept of morality, or a need for such a concept.

Read my post again. Picking little pieces out of it and commenting on those really misses/ignores the points I made.

Forget the emotions. There's no animosity at my end. If there's none at your end then why bother bringing it up?

you brought it into the argument. If you don;t remember doing so, then go back and read what you said.

I have no interest in passing judgements on whether I think someone is a moral or immoral person. So the concept of morality is totally useless for me.

As I mentioned in my previous post, you do indeed pass judgement quite often on this forum and I even said where you do so. You brought the idea of judgement into the conversation anyway, to argue that ideas of morality are about judging others. I gave my reply and it seems that you want to ignore that.

So be it.

[peterk]

This is hard work!

Not only that, but I question whether it's worth our time? In other words, is the topic of morality even worth wasting time on?

Well that's always a question worth asking. Personally I think it is, if only because the work of constructive dialogue is a good skill to promote (think Israel/Palestine, America/Russia, the Syrian conflict...) But I accept that it does take two to tango.

If we continue, here are some further thoughts:

...All I'm interested in at this point is the question from my first post: is there any topic at all that you would label "moral" and which is a matter of truth? Anything? Be as fringe as you like. Globalisation; Israeli West Bank occupation; Wall Street fraud; Hitler; nose picking...

This is a huge problem because it already implies that some issues are indeed very likely to be extremely questionable when it comes to labeling them as moral or immoral.

You talk of morality in terms of labels, and elsewhere in the post you describe it as a human construct. Is this an issue of definitions? Definitions are important, but they are not the whole story. For instance, would our conversation be any different if we switched the focus from morality to justice?

Please note that I'm not trying to argue anything here. Treat my question as a desire not to misunderstand you. I want to be a listener, pure and simple.

Well, in your previous posts to this thread you had outlined a line of reasoning that you stated had was one of the reasons that lead you to believe there is a God. I simply pointed out why that particular line of reasoning was faulty.

Yes I did state my viewpoint in the first post, and I'm not trying to hide from that. I can see how I may have given that impression, so I apologise. To sum up briefly, I am a Christian. I believe that God has created a universe in which truth and reason, beauty and joy, goodness and justice can be found as real objective reflections of God's character.

Incidentally, if you are right and the whole moral issue is subjective, then why is my (subjective) line of reasoning faulty?

For clarity my position is as follows:

You've put down a good summary of your views. I appreciate the effort.

1. Not all actions can be said to be objectively right or wrong.
(you have already agreed on this point)

Yes, although I would that my agreement is a matter of scope as much as anything. I would sum up my position as: Not all actions are moral (in the same way that not all sporting activity is golf). On the other hand the actions that are moral are more than subjective.

2. The concept of morality is not a concept of right or wrong, but rather a concept of intent of willful volition carried out by a sound mind.
(I'm not sure where you stand on this point, but if you agree, then you should also necessarily agree that morality requires that intent be considered and actions alone cannot constitute morality.)

Yes. Free will is obviously an element of the discussion.

3. My final point is that a concept of morality is totally useless in terms of having any practical value. All it amounts to is a judgement on another person's character. Keep in mind that if the actor is not of sound mind, then it's highly questionable whether it makes any sense to brand them as being immoral.
(I would like to hear your thoughts on this point.)

I disagree here. I would say that (1) Morality is definitely of practical relevance to life; and (2) judgement on character is part of the story, but not the whole story.

Obviously if our hypothetical man Fred does something "wrong", there may be judgments made about Fred's character. And if Fred is not of sound mind, that will impact the judgment we make. But what if Fred is of sound mind? What now will our judgment be? Surely the judgment of character will be based on his actions. We can hardly say that Fred has a bad character if he doesn't do anything "bad". So in my mind this is one integrated issue.

Furthermore, if concepts of "wrong" are subjective, then so are concepts of "right". This is why I believe the issue is highly practical. An analogy would be questions of healthy living. Despite complexity, despite differences of opinion, there is still an underlying concept of good/bad lifestyle habits. The issue is real, and it does make a difference. In the same way, I would argue that the core idea of a moral lifestyle really does exist. It makes a difference that we treat another person with or without respect. It makes a difference that some people are selfish, others are unselfish.

My goal is not to change people's opinions. (If anyone does, I hope it's not because I'm pressuring them, but because the points made are rational and thus speak for themselves.) My goal is to promote mutual understanding. I hope these comments are a small step in that direction.

[Divine Insight]

For instance, would our conversation be any different if we switched the focus from morality to justice?

From my perspective it would be extremely different. I feel that justice is definitely a useful concept to discuss. Justice does not even require a concept of morality at all. I would have very many thoughts to offer concerning a concept of 'justice'.

To sum up briefly, I am a Christian. I believe that God has created a universe in which truth and reason, beauty and joy, goodness and justice can be found as real objective reflections of God's character.

This would indeed be a very good conversation to have. And having the prerequisite conversation about 'justice' first would be even more productive.

You say that you believe that the Christian God created a universe in which objective justice can be found. I would certainly disagree with that. I don't see any evidence of any objective justice in our world. To the contrary I see plenty of evidence of injustice.

Even most Christian theists would typically argue that their God's 'justice' must take place in the afterlife, not in this life.

Finally, since you are the one who chooses to relate this with Christianity, I would point to the doctrines of Christianity (i.e. the Bible) and suggest that I see no justice in that doctrine. How is Jesus dying to pay for the sins of sinners justice?

Christianity actually represents amnesty from justice entirely. Especially when its main premise is that death for sinners would be 'justice'.

So Christianity is not about justice anyway, even by its own definition of what justice should be. A definition of 'justice' that I don't even agree with in any case.

So there are a lot of problems with Christianity and justice.

Incidentally, if you are right and the whole moral issue is subjective, then why is my (subjective) line of reasoning faulty?

I'm not saying that your line of reasoning about morality is faulty.

You basically argued that since all humans 'believe' in objective morality (which isn't even true anyway), then it must follow that objective morality must exist.

That's faulty logic, pure and simple.

I'm not saying that your ideas about what you think morality should be are faulty.

Those ideas would indeed be your own personal subjective opinions. I can't say that your opinions are 'faulty'. I can only say that I don't personally agree with them or embrace them myself.

Yes, although I would that my agreement is a matter of scope as much as anything. I would sum up my position as: Not all actions are moral (in the same way that not all sporting activity is golf). On the other hand the actions that are moral are more than subjective.

Ok, but keep in mind that at this point you are equating actions with morality.

Yes. Free will is obviously an element of the discussion.

It needs to be more than just an element of the discussion. The question is whether free will is an important element of a concept of morality. And if so, then morality can't be related to just actions, it must necessarily be a combination of actions and free will.

I hold that it's very important to recognize this additional component. With this addition actions alone cannot define morality. Two different people carrying out the exact same action, one may be committing a 'moral' act, while another may be committing an 'immoral' act. It can all depend on their intent.

So we see here that the concept of morality now needs to be associated with intent, not just actions.

I disagree here. I would say that (1) Morality is definitely of practical relevance to life; and (2) judgement on character is part of the story, but not the whole story.

Obviously if our hypothetical man Fred does something "wrong", there may be judgments made about Fred's character. And if Fred is not of sound mind, that will impact the judgment we make. But what if Fred is of sound mind? What now will our judgment be? Surely the judgment of character will be based on his actions. We can hardly say that Fred has a bad character if he doesn't do anything "bad". So in my mind this is one integrated issue.

So let's say that Fred does something 'bad' and we have determined that Fred knew better and knew that what he was doing was 'wrong'.

What do we gain by now saying that Fred is immoral?

How does that have any practical value in the real world?

Furthermore, if concepts of "wrong" are subjective, then so are concepts of "right". This is why I believe the issue is highly practical. An analogy would be questions of healthy living. Despite complexity, despite differences of opinion, there is still an underlying concept of good/bad lifestyle habits. The issue is real, and it does make a difference. In the same way, I would argue that the core idea of a moral lifestyle really does exist. It makes a difference that we treat another person with or without respect. It makes a difference that some people are selfish, others are unselfish.

But now you are losing sight of my entire point. I'm not arguing against the idea that some actions have better results than others. What I'm saying is that there is nothing to be gained by attempting to label things as being moral or immoral.

In fact, you've just opened up a whole can of worms here. If you are going to be suggesting that a potentially unhealthy lifestyle makes a person 'immoral' then you have just condemned the vast majority of humanity into the bin of 'immoral people'.

And where will this stop?

This already is heading toward demanding that everyone live a 'perfect lifestyle' because anything less than perfection is sure to be 'immoral' at least to some degree.

And who decides what entails a 'perfect lifestyle'?

My goal is not to change people's opinions. (If anyone does, I hope it's not because I'm pressuring them, but because the points made are rational and thus speak for themselves.) My goal is to promote mutual understanding. I hope these comments are a small step in that direction.

Well, these are debating forums. The purpose here is for others to point out flaws in logical reasoning, etc.

This is why I pointed out the flaw in your original reasoning that just because you think all humans believe in an objective morality that means that an objective morality must exist, therefore there must be a God.

That's just not a logically sound argument.

If you want to offer your personal opinions on what you believe might constitute perfect morality that's certainly permitted. And then others can explain why they don't embrace those views.

~~~~~

Just for the record, I don't see how Christianity could ever represent a basis for morality and especially 'justice' when Jesus is offering undeserved grace and amnesty for the unjust. How does offering undeserved grace and amnesty to the unjust represent justice?

Christianity is a religion that has Jesus tossing personal responsibility and justice right out the window.

In fact, in Christianity a person isn't even permitted to take responsibility for their own actions. The only option offered by Christianity is to accept undeserved amnesty tossing personal responsibility and justice out on its ear.