IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

Post by Immanuel Can »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:13 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:10 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:07 pm
Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?
That's not the argument. The argument is that Atheism is useless in that area.
Why is that a problem? What was all the ghost talk about?
Atheism makes morality a ghost. It offers no grounds for anybody to believe it's anything more than an odd figment of the individual's imagination. And as Hume pointed out, you can't get a free "ought" out of an "is" declaration.

Atheism holds that this world is a cosmic accident. Accidents have neither purpose nor moral content. There's nothing more to say about morality, given Atheism. It's a ghost, an imaginary thing that can never be found in reality.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:21 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:13 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:10 pm
That's not the argument. The argument is that Atheism is useless in that area.
Why is that a problem? What was all the ghost talk about?
Atheism makes morality a ghost. It offers no grounds for anybody to believe it's anything more than an odd figment of the individual's imagination. And as Hume pointed out, you can't get a free "ought" out of an "is" declaration.

Atheism holds that this world is a cosmic accident. Accidents have neither purpose nor moral content. There's nothing more to say about morality, given Atheism. It's a ghost, an imaginary thing that can never be found in reality.
When I asked "Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?"you told me "That's not the argument."

But the above does not work unless you are saying that religion is a necessary component of morality. So what is your argument Mannie?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:27 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:21 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:13 pm
Why is that a problem? What was all the ghost talk about?
Atheism makes morality a ghost. It offers no grounds for anybody to believe it's anything more than an odd figment of the individual's imagination. And as Hume pointed out, you can't get a free "ought" out of an "is" declaration.

Atheism holds that this world is a cosmic accident. Accidents have neither purpose nor moral content. There's nothing more to say about morality, given Atheism. It's a ghost, an imaginary thing that can never be found in reality.
When I asked "Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?"you told me "That's not the argument."
Right. It's not.

We were talking about Cat's worldview, not mine. And I'm making my own arguments with her. I'm certainly not repeating them here. Life's too short. You can go back and read them all yourself.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:33 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:27 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:21 pm
Atheism makes morality a ghost. It offers no grounds for anybody to believe it's anything more than an odd figment of the individual's imagination. And as Hume pointed out, you can't get a free "ought" out of an "is" declaration.

Atheism holds that this world is a cosmic accident. Accidents have neither purpose nor moral content. There's nothing more to say about morality, given Atheism. It's a ghost, an imaginary thing that can never be found in reality.
When I asked "Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?"you told me "That's not the argument."
Right. It's not.

We were talking about Cat's worldview, not mine. And I'm making my own arguments with her. I'm certainly not repeating them here. Life's too short. You can go back and read them all yourself.
This relates to what you were saying to Harbal too does it not?
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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So basically, no change. What I wrote earlier remains the case.

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:40 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:19 pm Why?
Because people cannot have any duty to chase ghosts. If morality is a ghost, nobody's got to think about it.

And it doesn't matter how many other things are ghosts, too. That still produces no duty on the part of anyone to chase any.
You seem to be insisting there is a stark dichotomy with religion inspired moral absolutism on one hand or no moral shit whatsoever on the other. Like if we don't have Bod to tell us not to steal then it's implausible (in your imagination) for us to come up with that one without him.

You don't have any apparent argument to support that though.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

Post by Immanuel Can »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:33 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:27 pm
When I asked "Where is the argument that religion is a necessary component of morality?"you told me "That's not the argument."
Right. It's not.

We were talking about Cat's worldview, not mine. And I'm making my own arguments with her. I'm certainly not repeating them here. Life's too short. You can go back and read them all yourself.
This relates to what you were saying to Harbal too does it not?
Not so much...tangentially, perhaps. But as yet, Harbal and I haven't gotten into details in much depth with that. Look back at the Cat conversation.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:29 pm
I'm a moral noncognitivist in a weak way (I don't affirm that moral utterances are noncognitive, I'm just not convinced they are -- I leave open the possibility, in other words, because so far I do not have some argument by which I can prove my doubt; and sometimes such doubts can't be proven).
Fair enough. But if it turns out that moral utterances have no objective referent, then complete Moral Nihilism would follow from that.
I was casually reading your back and forth there, and it occurs to me that your argument here seems to depend on an undeclared assumption. For indeed it is the case that many artifacts of our social interactions such as manner, fashions and morals, which vary in similar ways across many societies and within religions even, work very well without requiring any objective referent. Yet your insistence has it that one of these - namely morality - suffers some sort of annihilation of meaning without this absolute backing, and I don't see how that has been demonstrated.

The non-cognitivist position very clearly repudiates all talk of an absolute moral truth, so it is not effective to counter it by simply assuming that there is requirement for such and I recommend instead an actual demonstration if there is one to be made.

Furthermore I detect within your words a further assumption that religion is necessary to this whole business. Or perhaps you are arguing only that religion can offer sufficient grounds for this moral security, it's hard to say, you sort of avoid the question for some reason.
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Harbal
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm
Harbal wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:55 am
The notion of God goes contrary to what we know about nature and the universe,
Who is "we"?
Okay, I won't speak for anyone else. Just myself.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm

According to the CIA factbook, not more than 4% of the world's population are outright Atheists, by their own self-declaration. Another 4% are agnostic. The rest are some form of "religious."

Whoever the "we" are who are "knowing," it's not more than 4% of the world.
And what, exactly, are the views of the other 96% regarding the role God plays in the world that they have everyday experience of? What are their views on what informs their morality? How many of those who are not from countries or even communities that indoctrinate their children in some religious belief or other say something along the lines of, "well I feel there must be some sort of greater power, but I don't know what it is"?

Anyway, those numbers are irrelevant to the point I was making. How many physics text books, biology text books, any scientific text books, explain, or even allow for, God's role in the world?
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm
It's different for different people, I suppose. But we should ask why, no matter the audience, we even DO feel this thing called "shame." After all, if the empirical facts are that no moral standards are objective, are we just responding to our mal-conditioning inherited from our society? Should we just "get over" our feelings of shame, since they are mere social constructs, and now seem to plague us and make us unhappier than we would like?
Moral imperatives are subjective, but they can feel very objective. I firmly believe that they are subjective, yet my response to them is as if they were objective. If it were not so, it probably wouldn't work, would it? Just as the sensation of hunger makes it impossible to ignore my body's need to be fed, feelings of guilt, shame, compassion, etc., compel me to behave within a moral framework. The fact that morals are social constructs does not, as it turns out, make them any less compelling.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm

What I am, is a sinner whom God has saved. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It just means I've realized that fact, and made the first steps to trying to do something about it. That doesn't make me better than anyone...arguably, worse, maybe. But it means that, by God's grace, I am heading in the right direction, no matter how far from the finishing point I started.
I am also a sinner, but I don't have a God to save me. I don't even know what you mean by "saved". How can you be saved from something that has already happened? I have to live with the knowledge of the things I have done wrong for the rest of my life, there is no getting out of it. I could try to rationalise them in such a way as to enable me to convince myself of some sort of justification for my actions, but that wouldn't work for me, although many people do seem to successfully do that. Anyway, the sheer unpleasantness of the feelings brought about by my past wrongs is a very strong motivation in deterring me from repeating them.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm
And yes, you can come up with moral directives. Anybody can. But ours are arbitrary, except to the extent they conform to the facts of God's character. God's moral directives are never arbitrary. They're always grounded in who He is.
I don't see any principal difference between my moral directives and those of God, and I believe that I have no less respect for my moral principles than you have for God's. You say that God's moral directives are not arbitrary, but that is merely an assumption on your part. You see, this is where you have the advantage. Whereas I have to justify and explain how I arrive at my conclusions, you are simply able to say, "well, God makes it so".
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm
But "feel" is a tricky thing. We sometimes all "feel" things that are not true. So, I'm not saying that your assessment of guilt is not true; I'm saying we won't know whether or not it's true by referring to nothing more than "feeling."

Feelings need to be justified, in order for us to know what they mean. We need to know why we feel what we feel, and if that's related to reality.

I don't doubt your feeling. I don't even question your guilt, as you say it is there. I just ask, "What do you want to do about that?"
Yes, we do feel things that are not true, and I would venture that you feel that God exists more than you arrive at the conclusion via reason. In the case of morality, feelings do not need to be justified, they just need to be compelling enough to make us act on them. It is merely biology, but we need to feel that it is a great deal more than that, otherwise it would not be effective. I can't do anything about my guilt other than live with it. I won't construct a fantasy in order to relieve myself of the burden.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm Atheism gives me the premises; I just point to the necessary conclusion from there.
No, you are constructing your own premises relating to atheism. And you are treating atheism like a belief system, when, in fact, it is quite the opposite of a belief system.

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:06 pm There are Atheists who follow through the logic of Atheism to its own conclusions.
Atheism is simply an absence of belief in God, beyond that there is no requirement to believe or disbelieve anything else, and no requirement for your conclusions to be consistent with those of other atheists. Some atheists believe that the human race is descended from an ancient race of extraterrestrial astronauts, so atheists are obviously just as capable of being illogical as theists. The only brush you can collectively tar atheists with is that of not believing in the existence of God.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:57 pm I don't see how that has been demonstrated.
You might need to read properly, then.

Go back and have another look. Or don't.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:20 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:57 pm I don't see how that has been demonstrated.
You might need to read properly, then.

Go back and have another look. Or don't.
What was the argument b y which you demonstrated that morality is eitehr meaningless or else universaly objective.
I've looked for it but all you have done is assume it.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

Post by Immanuel Can »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:48 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:20 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:57 pm I don't see how that has been demonstrated.
You might need to read properly, then.

Go back and have another look. Or don't.
What was the argument b y which you demonstrated that morality is eitehr meaningless or else universaly objective.
I've looked for it but all you have done is assume it.
Well, I'm not repeating the conversation here...it's way too long. And I'm not going to try to summarize it, because I can't do it justice. But if you track, I'm sure it will become evident as we go.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:25 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:48 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:20 pm
You might need to read properly, then.

Go back and have another look. Or don't.
What was the argument b y which you demonstrated that morality is eitehr meaningless or else universaly objective.
I've looked for it but all you have done is assume it.
Well, I'm not repeating the conversation here...it's way too long. And I'm not going to try to summarize it, because I can't do it justice. But if you track, I'm sure it will become evident as we go.
I should have thought you could summarise, no? You weren't buying a similar response when biggie was telling you he had adequately defined dasein after all.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

Post by Immanuel Can »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:25 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 8:48 pm
What was the argument b y which you demonstrated that morality is eitehr meaningless or else universaly objective.
I've looked for it but all you have done is assume it.
Well, I'm not repeating the conversation here...it's way too long. And I'm not going to try to summarize it, because I can't do it justice. But if you track, I'm sure it will become evident as we go.
I should have thought you could summarise, no?
Perhaps. And I know that's what your campaigning for me to do, because you didn't really read the Cat conversation. But I'm disinclined. I think the longer conversation makes the point better.

So we'll just have to agree to disagree about whether or not a summary is appropriate here.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: IS and OUGHT

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:37 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:25 pm
Well, I'm not repeating the conversation here...it's way too long. And I'm not going to try to summarize it, because I can't do it justice. But if you track, I'm sure it will become evident as we go.
I should have thought you could summarise, no?
Perhaps. And I know that's what your campaigning for me to do, because you didn't really read the Cat conversation. But I'm disinclined. I think the longer conversation makes the point better.

So we'll just have to agree to disagree about whether or not a summary is appropriate here.
For the most part I read one or other of your posts to see what's going on. It's made somewhat easier by your sudden will to include full quotes and stuff when you are dealing with her. That conversation is flabby and all over the place, but it does not appear to contain the argument you are pointedly not describing.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: IS and OUGHT

Post by Immanuel Can »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:43 pm That conversation is flabby and all over the place...
Then you're welcome to ignore it, if you think so. It's still the best place for you to find out what's going on.
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