TownieDeac
words are futile devices
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- Mar 16, 2011
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isn't it impossible for any of us to comprehend?
Through a glass darkly...and all that
Through a glass darkly...and all that
How, in your view, does empiricism impact policy decisions? I mean, empiricism just provides observations, numbers, etc. It doesn't provide a guiding principle that tells us what we should do with those results.
I agree. Know any good books on epistemology?
No one bit on this, so I'll pose a direct question: do you agree that the very concept of ethics points to the existence of God?
Are our notions of ethics attempts to grasp universal truths?
Are these truths written into the fabric of the universe, like gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.?
Or, supposing truth is a woman
are ethics mere social mores that, ultimately, can be explained by resort to social darwinistic priciples?
No one bit on this, so I'll pose a direct question: do you agree that the very concept of ethics points to the existence of God? Are our notions of ethics attempts to grasp universal truths? Are these truths written into the fabric of the universe, like gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.? Or, supposing truth is a woman, are ethics mere social mores that, ultimately, can be explained by resort to social darwinistic priciples?
So, to be clear, the idea that "murder is wrong" is a byproduct of the fact that if we all went around killing each other we wouldn't survive as a species? That society is akin to an organism, and nature selects people who aren't murderous?
Am I right in thinking, on this account, that there is nothing objectively "wrong" about murder? It's just that we have built into us, by virtue of natural selection, a genetic desire to avoid murder? Sort of like we have built into us a natural aversion to spiders and snakes?
Am I right in thinking, on this account, that there is nothing objectively "wrong" about murder? It's just that we have built into us, by virtue of natural selection, a genetic desire to avoid murder? Sort of like we have built into us a natural aversion to spiders and snakes?
So, if I don't like person A, so much so that I don't want him around, and he is outside the group of people who can provide some benefit to me, why shouldn't I kill him? I am smart enough to plan a murder I can get away with it and I have trained my conscience not to be weak, unlike Pyotr Petrovich.
No, my question to you was, in your world, if I want to kill another individual and I think I can get away with it, both legally and in my own conscience (which is just a by-product of natural selection anyway), is there any reason I shouldn't do it? I will be happy to address your points but I want to be sure I understand your position first.
I don't understand your invocation of the frequency of war and murder. Are you saying that the fact it happens often proves it isn't morally wrong? If so, that argument is pretty easily defeated by the rejoinder that belief in moral absolutism does not require the unrelated view that man is a perfect moral actor.
As to your second point, belief in moral absolutism also does not require the unrelated view that God will either (a) punish us for our moral failings or (b) do so eternally. Strands of BCE Judaism, for example, didn't believe in the notion of an eternal soul, yet they plainly believed in moral absolutism. Strands of mid-20th century continental Christian theology accepted the notion of an eternal soul, but held that only the evil within us was punished eternally by being relegated to non-existence at the end times. Virtue, in other words, can be its own reward.
Acceptability of murder is contextual, some times it is warranted sometimes it is not. Therefore it is not universally morally wrong. For something to be universally wrong it always has to be wrong.
I don't really think it's accurate to say that the acceptability of "murder" is contextual. Maybe "killing," but not murder. From a legal standpoint, murder is, losely, the intentional killing of another human without justification. There are many claimed justifications for murder -- just war, self defense, defense of others, etc. We can have honest disagreement about what is and isn't a valid justification, but that really just goes to prove the underlying point that almost no one is going to argue that intentionally killing another human being without, at the very least, some colorable claim of justification is a morally ambiguous act.
Birdman, care to confirm? I mean, if there is no such thing as right and wrong, aren't all arguments that putatively come from a moral high ground illusory, whether that high ground is based on antiquated notions of God or the Good, or more modern notions, like "individual rights" and "consent"?
In fact, if Christians are weak for needing a god to tell them what is right and wrong, aren't moderns just as weak? Are they not weaker? Although, to their credit, they have killed god, instead of having the courage to look directly into the void, they had to invent another god in his place, with vague concepts like "individual rights" and consent," which they wear like a blankey in the cold. Slightly less stupid, to be sure, than Christians, because notions of "individual rights" and "consent" don't require belief in the fairy tale of creator sitting in the sky, but weaker just the same, no?