Posted on 05/28/2005 7:21:59 AM PDT by voletti
Clarity is always necessary. And there's nothing obvious about how adding law to three non-normative areas of knowledge gives you a morality different from law by itself.
The only criticism that I might attach to the use of the word "law" in the particular context, is that it was unnecessary, as 'personal experience, history, and science' completely triangulate both the rise of, as well as the means of determining morality as a concept.
If you're going to make a claim like this, you should explain it and defend it with arguments.
Admittedly the inclusion of "law" brings a specificity not presented in the other three. On the other hand "law" is a source for determining existing societal rules, and there by qualifies as a source for determining morality by definition.
As best I can tell, you claim here that existing societal rules are the definition of morality. Are you prepared to defend as moral everything ever required by a social rule which has existed?
We're talking about whether a worldview which rejects the supernatural can account for morality. Here, the positive claim is that it can.
I quite carefully addressed my reply to what was being discussed.
Trying to change the subject is not carefully addressing what was being discussed.
Morality as a concept is quite capable of being explained without mention of the supernatural by definition.
Perhaps, but I have not yet seen anyone demonstrate this by providing the explaination.
Theoretical explanations for its first cause stand quite independent of the supernatural. It can be seen among grooming practices of non human primates as well as in day to day right and wrong decisions made by humans, all independent of the supernatural.
You're still not getting the topic. I have not asked why people (or monkeys) do you things you or I would label moral, I've asked why, within your worldview, morality makes sense as a category. What makes some actions good and others bad? By which standard do you judge that some options are more moral than others? Whence comes "ought"?
The burden of proof lies with those that say the supernatural is necessary for morality to exist. Such has not been presented.
On the contrary. In this discussion, the naturalists are attempting to defend a highly counterintuitive claim: that random, meaningless aggregations of atoms ought to behave a certain way. And have not succeeded.
I think it is quite obvious that the small insight into morality gained from looking at "law by itself" is almost nothing compared compared to the wide ranging and depth of insight that can be gained from personal experience, history and science. Additionally your categorizing personal experience, history and science as "non-normative areas of knowledge" immediately leads me to ask; what is it that you call a normative areas of knowledge?
As for clarity, it is not always necessary. For example when various possible interpretations of a single word lead to the exact same understanding in addressing a particular topic, then it is unnecessary to set out exactly which definition is being used. That kind of clarity is asked for at the point when a distinction becomes necessary and not before. Other wise, almost every other word in a text would need to be defined, even where an unknown prior understanding was already assumed and accepted by both, just not expressed. To avoid such wasted use of words, clarity is assumed until one raises a particular question necessitating further clarification.
As best I can tell, you claim here that existing societal rules are the definition of morality. Are you prepared to defend as moral everything ever required by a social rule which has existed?
You should re-read what I said. At no time did I claim or even come close to implying that "societal rules are the definition of morality." Do you just make this stuff up so as to be able to answer your self? Additionally I never said, nor implied, that all social rules are moral.
If you're going to make a claim like this, you should explain it and defend it with arguments.
I am more than ready to defend any statement I've made with an argument, where the statement is actually disagreed with. But I'm not going to attempt to read your mind so as to determine in advance which statements you are going to say are in need of a supporting argument. In that case I would have to make an argument for every phrase in every sentence written.
Trying to change the subject is not carefully addressing what was being discussed.
In this discussion, the naturalists are attempting to defend a highly counterintuitive claim: that random, meaningless aggregations of atoms ought to behave a certain way. And have not succeeded.
You claim that I am trying to change the subject? There has been no discussion on this thread about the physics of atoms. No claim has been made by anyone other than you as to behavior of "random, meaningless aggregation of atoms." If I am wrong here, please state the posted reply number # where such a claim was made. The only one attempting to change the subject under discussion is you.
I stated in a prior reply which you quoted:
Morality as a concept is quite capable of being explained without mention of the supernatural by definition.
To which you replied:
Perhaps, but I have not yet seen anyone demonstrate this by providing the explaination.
Yet when I look over the replies by liberallarry and P_A_I , I find that they have more than adequately explained this in substantial detail. Both appear quite bewildered as to what more you could possibly want. The lack of clarity on your part further confounds any assessment as to what it is you are looking for.
Yet when I look over the replies by liberallarry and P_A_I , I find that they have more than adequately explained this in substantial detail. Both appear quite bewildered as to what more you could possibly want. The lack of clarity on your part further confounds any assessment as to what it is you are looking for.
It seems by your replies to them and to me, that you are in search of something more simplistic or basic than they are willing to waste time trying to explain. If simple is what you want, then lets look at that way.
It should be quite simple for you to visualize a primitive family living by a stream at some time in their past trying to catch fish using only their hands. After a period of time, a better method of using a large rock or log to hit the fish first comes into practice. Still later, use of a spear brings even greater efficiency. At this point we can see a clear development of the concept of right and wrong in getting fish from the stream.
Then after a bountiful harvest of fish, a hill top family comes down to the stream to steal fish. After a victorious battle over the fishing family, they return to their hill top to feast upon their stolen fish and to lick their battle wounds. But wounds fester, and death soon overtakes a few of the victorious family members.
How many times a hill top family will go on to wage such a war with an abundant supply of grapes and berries, is not known. But judging from our history of human capacity for looking out for ones own self interest, it is reasonable to expect that at some point, the idea of trading grapes and berries for fish will come to mind, leading two families to form a tribe to look out for their own self interests.
At this point both families have developed a concept of right and wrong with regard to acquiring the produce of the other. The concept of theft is understood and a low form of morality is clearly in place creating a custom among two inbred families of conscienceless sociopathic people forming a tribe. Since we have no written records from such a distant past, and have never observed the birth of any of the many different kinds of primitive tribes that have been scientifically studied, knowledge here is limited to the theoretical and not the actual. Thus the assumption here that the families are sociopathic and lacking in any kind of individual conscience is not supported. Add individual peoples conscience to the model and morality only would have developed sooner and quicker.
Since you have not been clear as to exactly what it is that you are looking for in an answer, I hope this rather simplistic explanation does it for you. The rest of your questions on this thread can quite easily be figured out by extending this little story to greater complexities of problems. As far as conscience goes, it is possible that it is only an illusion derived out of a trained highly complex sense of self interest imprinted over time from experience, and/or a product of the genetic code built in to our biology by DNA. I tend to think both.
I like my way of life and I intend to defend it...and extend it. If it turns out that I've made mistakes, so be it.
Dear Economist,
I have two words in response to your "think piece".
Northern Ireland.
Yours Truly,
An American
It's the one weekly magazine I read. Time and Newsweek are probably more leftist, on the whole, and have 1/10 of the coverage.
No naturalist I know of thinks humans are 'random, meaningless aggregations of atoms'. Can't you crusaders for morality muster even a smidgen of intellectual honesty?
Careful now! There are enough contentious screwballs here at FR that you could be opening yourself up to a flame war.
Wide ranging, deep insight still doesn't tell you what you ought to do without some concept of a good to be pursued, which cannot be supplied by those things. The closest would be seeing a good in your personal experience an realizing you want it -- but what sets this good about from the things you see and don't want?
Additionally your categorizing personal experience, history and science as "non-normative areas of knowledge" immediately leads me to ask; what is it that you call a normative areas of knowledge?
"Giving directives or rules" -- dictionary.com
As for clarity, it is not always necessary. For example when various possible interpretations of a single word lead to the exact same understanding in addressing a particular topic, then it is unnecessary to set out exactly which definition is being used.
I've tried to think of an example where different senses of a word might work equally well, and I can't. After all, there's a reason we consider them different senses. So you're babbling here. Of course, in real life the meaning is usually clear from context. But none of this relates to the problem, which has nothing to do with one particular word. It's a whole claim which looks and smells like a non sequitur. Personal experience, history, and science; therefore morality. But why?
As best I can tell, you claim here that existing societal rules are the definition of morality. Are you prepared to defend as moral everything ever required by a social rule which has existed?
You should re-read what I said. At no time did I claim or even come close to implying that "societal rules are the definition of morality." Do you just make this stuff up so as to be able to answer your self? Additionally I never said, nor implied, that all social rules are moral.
You said:
On the other hand "law" is a source for determining existing societal rules, and there by qualifies as a source for determining morality by definition.
So law is a source for determining existing social rules and is "there by" a source for determining morality by definition, thus morality by definition must be social rules; or else the whole thing is meaningless blather, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
If you're going to make a claim like this, you should explain it and defend it with arguments.
I am more than ready to defend any statement I've made with an argument, where the statement is actually disagreed with. But I'm not going to attempt to read your mind so as to determine in advance which statements you are going to say are in need of a supporting argument. In that case I would have to make an argument for every phrase in every sentence written.
As it happens, I made things simple for you by quoting it, so if you are indeed more than willing to defend any statement you made, go ahead and do it, don't waste pixels with this irrelevant stuff about reading minds. I laid it out in italics.
Here, I'll do it again and make it even more specific:
'personal experience, history, and science' completely triangulate both the rise of, as well as the means of determining morality as a concept.
Explain and defend that.
You seem to prefer to try to make me guess at what you had in mind. And by pure guesswork I'd say it has something to do with self-interest, personal experience etc. showing the best way to advance it. But let's not argue my guess at your meaning. Explain it yourself.
In this discussion, the naturalists are attempting to defend a highly counterintuitive claim: that random, meaningless aggregations of atoms ought to behave a certain way. And have not succeeded.
You claim that I am trying to change the subject? There has been no discussion on this thread about the physics of atoms. No claim has been made by anyone other than you as to behavior of "random, meaningless aggregation of atoms." If I am wrong here, please state the posted reply number # where such a claim was made. The only one attempting to change the subject under discussion is you.
Now this is a remarkable paragraph. When my opponent is reduced to this level, I think I might legitimately claim victory and stop.
Yet when I look over the replies by liberallarry and P_A_I , I find that they have more than adequately explained this in substantial detail. Both appear quite bewildered as to what more you could possibly want.
What I want is very simple: an explanation of why a person ought to behave one way rather than another which he might prefer that makes sense within the naturalistic worldview. Attempts have been made, but none have stood up to examination.
In one sense, I am looking for something "basic", but not in the sense you evidently have in mind. I'm not looking for "simplistic". But laboring under this misapprehension, you decided to "waste time" to explain something I've never inquired into, and when explanations have been repeatedly offered anyway I've tried to get back on topic. In your case, it was a little just-so story about cavemen deciding to make love, not war, and becoming Stone Age James Madisons knowing the advantages of union. I doubt very much it ever happened like that, but that's beside the point. Somehow or another, people behave "morally". Great. Never argued otherwise. But why, for you, does morality even make sense as a concept? Why does the later behavior have a different status from the earlier?
So do you say they aren't of equal worth?
By what standard?
Because it isn't?
Dan
That the naturalists you know are too cowardly or thoughtless to follow their ideas to the necessary conclusion isn't my fault. It seems they would prefer to borrow some idea of the dignity of man from Christianity, which only means they find something attractive in Christianity, or rather in the cultural residue of Christianity. But how long can men live on cultural residues?
That's moronic, frankly. Nowhere does naturalism lead to the conclusion humans are 'random, meaningless aggregations of atoms'.
What I want is very simple:
an explanation of why a person ought to behave one way rather than another, - which he might prefer, - that makes sense within the naturalistic worldview.
Attempts have been made, but none have stood up to examination.
You refuse to see that our attempts to explain are met with your inability to understand, based on your flawed view of a 'naturalistic world'.
People naturally [out of self interest] behave & interact with others using the golden rule, a rule they naturally learn in infancy.
People who behave this way have a better chance of survival/reproduction than those who bite the hand that feeds them.
-- Thus we have the beginnings of natural law & moralities, handed down thru generations of survivors.
This is a fairly simple, self evident process to those who think in a rational manner.
What sets good apart from the things you see and don't want, is desire and cost. It is really quite simple at this level, I'm surprised you needed to ask.
For the sake of clarity, I asked you what you call a normative areas of knowledge. You then state "Giving directives or rules" which is not an area of knowledge in and of itself. You then provide a link to a dictionary. Here it seems that you are confusing knowledge of normative ethics with normative knowledge. They are not the same thing.
I've tried to think of an example where different senses of a word might work equally well, and I can't.
Your peculiar use of "normative" is a good example. Another example is your interpretation that the non-sequitur: Personal experience, history, and science; therefore morality, was even being put forth. But the most glaring example of yours is:
So law is a source for determining existing social rules and is "there by" a source for determining morality by definition, thus morality by definition must be social rules; or else the whole thing is meaningless blather, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
A statement that "law is a source...", is not the same as saying that "law is the source...", but you interpreted it as such. The result of this small narrow interpretation you put on the word "a" is enough to cause you to wrongly jump to a conclusion that what is being proposed is that "morality by definition must be social rules." You even persistently continue this wrong interpretation even after being advised that such was not being proposed.
I asked you to "please state the posted reply number # where..." naturalists on this thread were making a claim about the behavior of "random, meaningless aggregation of atoms." Your reply was that "when my opponent is reduced to this level, I think I might legitimately claim victory and stop." Victory at what? Making the biggest false statement? When you first introduced "atoms" to the discussion, I at first chose to skip everything written by you as bordering on ridiculousness. Only later out of fairness did I later go back and follow your line of reasoning. Your sophistry is sophomoric in quality. When unable to adequately argue a point, you seem to either purposefully misinterpret what is said or change the subject by bringing in the irrelevant, and then immediately insult or accuse your opponent of changing the subject.
What I want is very simple: an explanation of why a person ought to behave one way rather than another which he might prefer that makes sense within the naturalistic worldview. Attempts have been made, but none have stood up to examination.
They have stood up. You just ignore and misinterpret what is said out of fear that it undermines your own personal world view. The primary reason one ought to behave one way rather than another is that desires as well as costs lead to values which direct our every action. When ever a better way is determined to exist, be it by ethical inquiry or any other means, the costs of doing so will be measured, sometimes imprecisely against the values held by an individual. At the societal level, the transmission of better evaluated information and improved explanations show increasing numbers of people the cost advantage of either sticking to past or present values and from time to time replacing them with new or improved values.
Considering that there are many different ways of answering this question, and no matter which one I chose, you will say that it is not the type of answer you are looking for or will reinterpret the question so as to make it not the answer you are looking for, I choose not to answer at this time.
If you are honestly looking for an answer, then first set the type of answer you want, by answering the question yourself. I'll then answer it in kind with my own answer, expressing my own position.
You're looking for something which doesn't exist...and we're going around in circles. I've already told you how I make my judgements. I look at my experience, at science, at history, at law. I check my inner thermometer - my conscience. Then I choose. I don't have to consult my mommy or my daddy or big brother in the sky.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.