IS and OUGHT

[henry quirk]

Astro,

Damn it Henry, sometimes I just want the song to be about me. Jeeze! Lol

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZmCJUSC6g

-----

B,

Please continue to post your ideas.

Always...

You can do your own googling. I am not writing an academic dissertation here.

Neither am I.

-----

Harbal,

I think rights are a good thing in general, and they tend to come with responsibilities.

Okay. I'm not sure why flash made a to-do about your position on rights, but there it is.



-----

flash,

Are you blaming me for not agreeing with your argument?

Not at all. That was poor wording on my part. I'll clarify: there's a gulf between you and me as amoralist and moralist I don't know how to bridge. Neither of us moves the other.

Better?

*

Some majoritarian realist would agree with what you wrote there, but I am not a realist so describing my position with the language of realism won't work.

This...from your perspective as someone with no claim to yourself, the majority wins...not becuz the majority is right but simply becuz they are the majority...seems purely descriptive. You don't accept natural rights. You say we as a society, have endless debates about this stuff and over time they move back and forth and we often end the debates, temporarily, thru a direct or representative vote, with the majority vote callin' the shots. There's no realist language here beyond this is what happens.

*

As if you cared.

I'm gettin' to the place where I really don't.

*

Your petulant little strawman dramas aren't accurate.

Oh, this...And you, with no claim to anything (other than what's allowed by the majority), well, you may not like what the majority demands of you, or restricts you to or from, but -- if you're gonna be consistent (and, of course, you don't have to be) -- you have no foundation to resist. If your government, backed by the will of the people, decides trannies are a menace that must be contained or eliminated, well, them's the breaks. You certainly can't argue (well, you can, but who'd take you seriously?) the trans-person has any rights. you could argue they have privileges, sure, but that's all (understandin', of course, that what the people give, the people can take away)....is hyperbolic, yes, and unlikely to happen as long as lip service is paid to human rights (which, of course, have no backin').

*

That sort of sounds like Democracy really.

Yes, it does. And so does my hyperbolic bit above.

Not a fan of mob rule, myself.

[Immanuel Can]

...science is nothing to do with religion...

It does, actually. It owes its very existence to what you call "religion," but only to Judaism and Christianty, of course...not to "religion" generally.

It cannot be the case because it is just a myth.

You can presume that, if you so choose. That's one option.

What if it's not a myth? What if it's what they call a "mythos," which can be a real event with a symbolic value as well?

Given Atheism, or Materialism, or Physicalism, or whatever, when people say "morality is objective," all they can mean is "morality is something human beings do socially." It's a "social phenomenon," a "strange habit people have." What they can't say is that the moral precepts themselves are objectively true or right; only that it is true that some people practice them or believe in them.

I wouldn't argue with any of that. Including the term "strange habit" wasn't necessary,

Actually, it is, I would say.

For we rarely think of how utterly "strange" it would be, if human beings had somehow developed a "habit" that the real facts of the universe didn't bear out in any way at all? What could be said about it, but that's it's very odd that human beings should have so habituated themselves, when there's nothing in the universe that corresponds to it?

In other words, they have to hold that morality is merely a psychological delusion...one that many have, perhaps, and maybe even one that has some limited social usefulness; but no more substantial in the final weighing than belief in Aristotle's four bodily humours or in alchemical transformations of lead into gold. It's just another kind of supersitition, really, an oddity of human misbelieving.

No, not a delusion, more of an illusion, and there is nothing mere about it. It is crucial to our ability to function as social animals.

Pause there.

Why should that be? Why would believing something totally contrary to reality turn out to be adaptive or helpful to survival, when everything in the universe is indifferent to it? Surely that's a bit more miraculous than magic, that.

Our sense of morality is purely a human psychological phenomenon, and nothing to do with God.

That view is what I'm pointing out: think of how weird that is! Why would humans need this "phenomenon" at all, in a universe in which it corresponds to nothing? It's like if everybody in the world started believing in pixies, and somehow, that turned out to get us an "evolutionary" advantage. It's highly implausible, on the face of it.

.but who is doing the "considering" in that sentence? Who is the person who has so much authority that they can determine what you should and should not believe is wrong?

Well, maybe we have Jesus to thank for that, in part, along with a few others. Didn't he have a "Golden Rule"?

Indeed. But why should He know more than we do about that? And what makes us obligated to follow Him in that, even so, if He were nothing but ordinary?

Moreover, many societies and philosophies deny the Golden Rule altogether. Buddhism has a negative rule, as in "leave your neighbour alone," but nothing positive like the GR. Islam says you kill infidels and apostates. Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Spencer, Marx, Rand...all of these treated the Golden Rule as actually "bad" in some sense.

And Jesus said not just "love your neighbour as yourself," but also "love your enemies, and pray for those who treat you spitefully." That's a good deal more than the GR.

If my rule is only subjective, it's like my diet...I can cheat on it, and I may feel "guilty" if I do. But really, since only I care whether or not I stick to my diet, and since only I made the "imperative" for it in the first place, it's pretty easy for me to forgive myself and move on. Really easy, in fact.

That's a false comparison. A moral impulse is similar to one driven by love for someone. You can't suddenly just decide to stop loving your wife because she doesn't iron your shirts properly. You don't carry on loving her because you think God expects it of you. If you hold a firm moral principle that stealing is wrong, you can't just override your psychological commitment to it and start picking pockets whenever you are a bit short of cash.

You certainly can, if you think it through. If you do, you're bound to realize that any moral compunctions you feel inwardly must be no more than that: "feelings." As such, they can have no objective command on you. And if you can change your feeling about them, which you certainly can, then you are also free of the moral compunction. In any case, your brain is always going to remind you that any residual squeamishness is just that -- squeamishness, and no more.

It's amazing what moral restraints people can "get over." Excellent studies have been done of Hitler's executioners, and of ordinary policemen turned into his obedient killers with a minimum of urging. Human beings are much better at sloughing off moral worries than we would like to believe, it seems: and while we'd all like to believe that we'd never go along with the Shoah or the Holodomor or Mao's purges, the agnonizing fact remains that most people, most ordinary folks, did just that.

And you and I...are we so sure we're above them?

If you make a subjective rule that you will not fly in airplanes, say, who does that "victimize"? And what gives anybody a right to be "offended" if you don't feel safe in airplanes?

If your refusal to travel on planes were for environmental reasons, then the environment would be the victim,[/quote]
The environment is a product of accidental, impersonal forces coming together, just as all the people in the world are. And that being so, how can one owe them anything?

No, they don't get victim status merely by falling afoul of the natural process of "survival of the fittest." In Evolutionism, that's just the way their cookie crumbles.

What if one part of the offense we commit against another person is that it violates a creature given life, liberty and other rights by God Himself, so that our affront to that person, His creation, is also an affront to the Creator?

And what of the justice of God, if He will let such things happen and go forever unredressed? What if He is what He says: the Just one, and the ultimate and final defender of those harmed by what I have chosen to do?

What's the point of asking me that? You know I don't believe there is a creator.

It begins with the words "what if"?

That signals that my intention is only to invite you to think of what could be. I'm not asking you to change your beliefs; only to entertain that there are other interpretations in the world that are not yours, and that this one is at least as plausible as your own.

Atheists are moral agents who don't really know what morality really means (other than it's a subjective state) or what can ground or justify its claims as objective truth. Christians are moral agents that do. In some cases, you may not even be able to tell the difference, based merely on behaviour. Both may be very nice, well-behaved, decent folks. So both are moral agents.

If they are both well behaved, decent folks, who care if they are Christian or atheist? Certainly not I.

Well, for a start, of course, God does.

But then, I think you and I have a stake in that, too. For if, as I believe, Atheist ethics are not durable, because the precepts they stipulate are actually lacking any backing in reality, then it will only be a matter of time until the Atheist polity wakes up, realizes the logical consequences Nietzsche said they would, and gets "beyond good and evil," to something much much worse than the present.

I think we're already seeing that eventuality starting to come to fruition.

Still neither is anything but a sinner, ultimately, since, as the Bible says, "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." (Rm. 3:10)

Another difference is this: a morally-minded Atheist is a man who feels guilt, but can do nothing about it. A Christian is a person who knows he's guilty, but has done something to deal with it.

What the Bible says is of no interest to me, you know that.

I do. Nevertheless, I am content to tell you what I believe to be the truth, even though I can only let you do with it what you will. I have my own responsibility to do right by you, in this, for which I also must answer.

No, I don't mean that. Atheism is not a system of any kind, that is what I mean.

It's a single disbelief claim. But it does have cascade effects. Most Atheists don't want to think about that, but it's true.

One is that it requires them to have an alternate theory of creation. Another is that it requires them to presuppose some sort of Physicalism or Materialism; and another, that it rules out any possibility of transcendent realities. But an additional one is that it leaves morality as a mere social phenomenon, with no legitimacy beyond that.

So it very quickly turns into a package deal, and dominates other areas of thinking and living.

It doesn't require them to have a theory of anything.

Which one of the above do you think an Atheist can rationally deny?

They all follow, logically speaking.

If you keep insisting that morality has no legitimacy if it doesn't come from God,

You mean, "If Nietzsche keeps insisting?" He said it, long before I repeated it.

But it's true. And Nietzsche also knew what you are yet to see...that it's disbelief in God that launches that missile.

...it does suggest that human beings have a tendency towards having religious belief systems, and yours is just one more.

Maybe. You can think so. But maybe one of them is actually the truth.

Some atheists might want you to believe something, I don't know,

Oh, I think you do.

You know names like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, don't you? Atheists are, ironically, rather "evangelical."

...there is nothing you could say to me to convince me that there is, so why waste effort trying?

Two reasons, at least.

One, I hope it's not actually true, and I can be of some use to you. If I didn't try, that wouldn't be very nice.

Two, you have a live conscience. And I see that you are in some distress with it. And I don't want that to be a fate for you. So if I can show you that forgiveness and freedom can be had, why wouldn't I?

That would make you an agnostic.

I'm probably an Apathetic. I don't believe there to be a God, but I don't care much one way or the other.

And yet...that conscience.

You're not happy, either. Has being "apathetic," as you put it, worked out so very well for you that you are loath to give it up?

I find that in the face of supplying reasons, they wilt. They say feeble things like, "Well, I've never seen God, so you can't believe in Him either." Or "I just don't like the evil in the world, and since I don't know what it means, I believe there's no God," or even "I don't like your morality, like your prohibition on abortion, so I reject God."

These are poor evasions of the problem, of course, hardly a "shower of reasons."

That is what is known as anecdotal evidence, which makes it inadmissible.

Right. So Atheists don't have a "shower of reasons." They hardly have anything at all.

Like Dawkins? Or Hitchens? Or Harris? These are men who have to be dragged from the spotlight screaming and kicking. They publish books and go on tour to proclaim their anti-gospel of faithlessness to the masses.

But the average Atheists is, indeed, usually more quiet. And with good reason. Most become Atheists by way of knee-jerk reaction, out of a desire to escape the very question of God, it seems. So understandably, having shut the door on the question, they are reluctant to open it again.

Kids will believe whatever they are told. Most kids who haven't been subjected to religious indoctrination will go into adulthood without giving religion a second thought.

That is, sadly, true. And a young person raised with Atheism will likely be just as indoctrinated in disbelief.

But this is a comment on human nature, not on the justifiability of the belief in view. "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation," wrote, Thoreau. He was right. Or, as Socrates so famously said, "The unexamined life" turns out to be "not worth living." Yet most people refuse to examine their beliefs, preferring to stay safe in the shelter of their received ideas, rather than sail the high seas of philosophy.

But this sort of truism is by no means exclusive to the religious. It's everybody.

Many people in Britain will nominally say they are Christian, because they grew up in a nominally Christian society, but they don't really have any religious beliefs.

Yes, they will.

This is the "cultural Christianity" of which Alexis is so perversely fond. He actually thinks it's somehow a good thing. And maybe he's right in this much: that even a nominal religiosity can work its way through a culture like leaven through bread dough, smoothing it out and filling it up with values that can give it coherence...at least for a time. That's something...not much, but something...so maybe we have to give Alexis his credit for that much.

But that's no real "Christianity," and nothing I'd be advocating.

I admit that a surprisingly high number do say they probably believe in God, but they don't know much about God, and it doesn't influence how they live their lives.

Also right.

There's much more to believing something than imaginging it's factually true. Belief...real belief...is an investment of the self in a whole new way of thinking and acting. Most people, especially mere nominalists, never get that far.

But what is that to you and me? For the masses are often wrong. And I think we both know they are.

[Immanuel Can]

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.

I don't know. I suppose a creature that accidentally came into being can have a purpose or morality.

Yes, they can have one.

But can they give reasons why they must have one? Can they explain why they must have the one they have, and not some other? Can they explain to somebody else why they should respect, admire, follow, or uphold the same morality?

Can they provide the reasons why their conception of justice is fair and obligatory on all? Can they show that they stand for justice -- or rather, that the thing they stand for is justice? Can they justify locking malefactors up, or rewarding the allegedly "good"?

You see, you can just "have" a belief in anything you want. But not all beliefs are justified. Not all can be shown to be right. Not all are defensible. And not all can be shown to be obligatory for others, or even for yourself.

I would "naturally" wish to survive and in order to survive, I would say that my fellow species members ought not to kill me off.

Well, Nietzsche said that that's just a case of the weak trying to get the strong not to dominate them. He would have said the strong should ignore you, spit through their teeth, and do what they want, instead. They owe you nothing.

Cruel? Yes: but irrational, given Atheism? Not at all. Most logical, in fact. Why should the strong hold back? They do not need the weak. It will be enough if they have their own strength and the combined strength of other such "overmen," only acting in their own interests and joining with others only as much as suits them. And thereby, society will progress. The weak will diminish, and the strong will rise.

So see to that yourself, he would have told you.

However, do I think there are coincidences in the world that seem too convenient for a completely materialistic view of the world: yes. I do.

As do I, Gary.

[Immanuel Can]

I did not say exist I said existence itself.

Existence is a state, a condition. It cannot be by "itself." It always refers to the condition of something, the state it is in.

Existence is also not a "cause." It doesn't make things happen.

What you're making is called "a category error."

When God said "I am that I am" He was giving a voice to existence itself .

No, it was His voice.

He was revealing Himself to Moses (Ex. 3:14) actually. He was telling Moses that He is the self-existent One. Just as Jesus told the Pharisees the same thing (John 8:58).

[Dubious]

...science is nothing to do with religion...

It does, actually. It owes its very existence to what you call "religion," but only to Judaism and Christianty, of course...not to "religion" generally.

it doesn't actually, not in any way, sense, shape or form. In case I haven't made myself clear, Christianity proved inimical to science. What we got instead was Plato and St Augustine. It was as Carl Sagan once mentioned, if science had been allowed to continue from it ancient roots especially from what was already apparent in the late Roman Empire, it is not improbable we could have landed on the moon by the time Dante wrote the Divine Comedy. Instead as late as 1600 Christians still found it necessary to burn Giordano Bruno alive because his speculations went beyond what was acceptable to Christian dogma.

You never cease to lie! So much for your superior morality...you know, the one mandated by god!

[Immanuel Can]

I've taken quite a bit of time to ponder this and fashion a reply.

If only discourse with you wasn't so darn useful, maybe I could get some sleep.

Anyway, at length, I've gotten back to your very substantial and thoughtful reply. I've taken the liberty of shortening as many passages as I could, putting in "..." to indicate, as much as I could, when something substantial would need to be tracked from a previous message. But I'm sure you remember what you wrote, and it was necessary in order to keep this from becoming the reply that ate Manhattan.

When I try to understand what it is, it always goes like this:

Person: You ought to value x.

Me: Ok, but I don't hold that value. Why ought I value x?...

P: Goodness is a property that's objectively defined, not personally defined.

M: Objectively defined how?

Different realists answer from there in different ways, so I'll stop the mock conversation there. This is also pretty much the point in this conversation that we're at now with my questions to you regarding what goodness means.

I don't think we actually are, Cat.

We're far past that, in fact. I've suggested that the word "good" means "conformable to the character and wishes of God."

Now, I understand why somebody who'd already decided not to entertain even the possibility of God existing might find that answer unhelpful. At the same time, I suggest it's the right answer...or very close to being the right way to put it. So there really isn't an alternative.

I also understand why you would think that "oughts" have to be amoral and instrumental (or amoral and probabilistic). I have agreed that, given the supposition that the question is not to be answered with reference to God, that there would be no possible answer as to why a moral "ought" would exist. And I think Hume saw the same, really. So, of course, did Nietzsche.

So long, then, as you are committed not to including God in the answer, I'm certain that you will end up with exactly the sorts of conclusions at which you find yourself keeping on arriving...namely, that there is essentially nothing to a moral "ought," and instrumental "oughts" are bound up in if-then, instrumental patterns of thought.

But what's to be done about that? For if we will not hear the real answer, then why would we think we're going to find it someplace else?

Thus, the fact that you keep arriving back at the place you left becomes utterly unsurprising...and very predictable. Because careful, disciplined reasoning, such as you are doing, coupled with a refusal of God, is going to take you back there every time. I'm certain of it. The only way you'll escape the loop is either by changing that presupposition, or by abandoning careful, disciplined reasoning. Do you want to do either?

...We end up in a world in which "value" means nothing more than "prefer temporarily." It lacks all force of "oughtness," all duty, all compulsion to "do the right thing," and all moral content. So we have dealt with the concept of "oughtness" by essentiallly banishing it from the realm of the meaningful, or, on the other hand, by accidentally conflating it with the instrumental -- as if something could become a moral duty merely by being efficient for some purpose that itself cannot be morally judged.

And that leaves us with a confusing universe: it's one in which moral language floats around for no reason, referring to nothing. How it even all got started becomes a mystery...it's as if the whole world had suddenly begun to believe in fairies, and are now just discovering there never was any such thing. But what cosmic mechanism would ever produce belief in fairies in the first place, since fairies never existed? And now that we've discovered that the morality-fairies are not real, then why persist in using the fairy language at all? None of it remotely makes any sense.

In any case, yes, I think you describe it right: values are a lot like preferences and lack the ostensible force of whatever a moral ought is supposed to have.[/quote]
Well, that actually turns out to be one heck of a pill to swallow.

Think about it. It means that there is no longer any way to choose an action, or a political policy, to organize an institution, or to distribute resources, in a way that is authentically, objectively "good." It tells us that the truth is only this: different interest groups have different amounts of power, and different strategies availiable to them. None of these interest groups is actually morally "right" or even "more good" than another, nor are their projects and aspirations "more noble" or "more just" than any other group...because "moral" or "goodness" means nothing other than the level of success their strategies having in seizing the public agenda, or resources, or hegemony, or whatever. In other words, it's an instrumental word, not a moral one.

Do I have to spell the consequence of that worldview out to you? Nietzsche already has. It's a world of raw power, in which "right" has no objective force in the situation. And "rights" or "deserving," or "freedom," or "restitution," or "justice" -- all of them morally-laden concepts -- have no legitimate basis being employed in the discussion at all. They, too, are nothing but propaganda tools. They are devoid of objective reality. And a smart person, one who knows and sees how things really are, can advantageously dismiss them all with the wave of a hand, in the instrumental interest of seizing power.

Is that the world you think we really live in? You seem to say, "Yes." But I suspect you're not fully processing what this does to the causes you love and advocate in your own political activities. However, you can set me straight on that one.

...my worldview accounts for that as most people are simply born into their cultures and/or religions without much questioning and it is part of the "nurture" aspect of their values. Those that convert to another culture or religion surely do so on the basis of what "feels" the most right to them: they choose based on what is closest to their values!

Doesn't that run together two different explanations, though?

First, you say that people only believe what they're born into. That's one view. But then, sensing the basic flaw in that position, you turn to those who convert. And you say they do so because of "what feels most right to them." But from where do those "feelings" emanate? Not from their socialization, because that's the thing they are throwing over, right?

And we know, also, that "feelings" are treacherous things: think back to, perhaps, the first person you ever "fell in love" with...how do you feel about them now? Or think about when you were betrayed, how, as you might have said, "I could have strangled her." Do you still simmer and want to kill that person? But at the time, you had "feelings" of a very strong sort for them...so "feelings" cannot be trusted. Some are warranted, some are not. Some are merely momentary, even if intense, and some may be more durable. Some are what we call "good" feelings, like being in love for a time; but some are also what we recognize as "bad," such as wanting to strangle somebody in the moment. But the overriding feature of feelings is their variability.

And under that problem, the "feelings" explanation has an even bigger problem: from where do we derive the axiom, "Thou shalt do what thou dost feel?" What tells us that that is some kind of moral imperative? Why do we owe people, or even outselves, to act on "feelings"? Where's the moral imperative for that coming from?

As for moral language floating around, humans do this sort of thing all the time where their language incorporates things that may not even be real or based on reality. Simple examples are non-believers simply cursing "God damn it!" as an expletive, or even "Oh God!" in the bedroom. People also say things like "knock on wood" or "cross your fingers," or colloquially (but not actually, at least for most people) express something about the surely nonsense concept of "luck." Words like "disaster" come from ancient beliefs about comets and nebulous evil. Language is actually rife with nonsense that most people don't believe (though some do), and that is true for every language. People do tend to just sort of do this.

Of course people do talk nonsense. That's exactly what I'm saying is the crucial issue, though: is moral language nonsense?

And if we say it is, do not all the other consequences I've listed above also follow? I think they do.

So, I think all of the oughts we experience are instrumentalist in nature.

Well, then there's no such thing as morality. Hitler had a good sense of the instrumentality of his purposes. His success in executing (if I can use that word) so many of them bespeaks his instrumental effectiveness...and we would have to say that he "ought" to have done something like he did.

Personally, I don't think you and I can live with such a conclusion. However, in an amoral universe, there's no longer any reason why you and I "shouldn't."

On the noncognitivist picture, "oughts" are personal, so one person experiencing an ought doesn't mean someone else does. So I can say that it's true that if Hitler valued genocide, then from his perspective he ought to commit it. It is a dispassionate description of what he does with his value; it can be translated as "if Hitler valued genocide, then a way to further that value would be to commit it." That's what an instrumentalist ought is. We can see that once translated and see that it's simply true, it carries no connotation of being morally right or morally wrong (which are undefined non-concepts on noncognitivism).

Well, again, I can only commend your willingness to go down with the plane, and ride it flaming into the ground. Because if what you're saying is right, then no cause you, yourself seek to advocate has any moral leg to stand on. You will have to argue for it based on instrumentality...and I think you'll find any such case very hard to make.

I'd take a bullet if it would stop genocide in some way:

You "ought" not.

If "oughts" are instrumental, then the lives of millions are not a "good" worth dying for. Sure, you could "value" doing that arbitrarily, but I don't think you're going to want to die for a value you already know, deep in your heart, is merely arbitrary anyway. In the face of death, I think reason would invite you to consider that the death of millions is not worse than your own death, and in any case, you can be no "heroine" for so doing.

[

quote="Immanuel Can"]

Now this is where I might have confused you originally. Most of us look at this and think, "ooh, that sounds gloomy." So I usually point out the silver lining: "don't worry," basically. "If you possess the common values of empathy and altruism, so do most people.

Wow. That's nowhere near "silver" enough.

Let's suppose that psychopaths are rare. In fact, they are: 1% in the general population. And severe, active psychopaths, like axe murderers...let's say they're only 1 in 1,000. The fact that "most people" do not share their "values" gives us no consolation at all. That still means that we have severely morally disordered individuals among us, and no legitimate explanation of why you and I have any right to impose our "values" over their "values."

Well, on the noncognitivist picture, there's no such concept as a "right" in the context you're using.[/quote]
I did not use the word "right" there, actually. I asked, what's our legitimacy in imposing our "values" over their "values"?

On the noncognitivist picture, nobody has a "right" to not have others impose their values on you.

But on the noncognitvist picture, it's not "wrong" either if they do. There are no "rights" either way.

So again, we're back to that Nietzschean world, in which only power rules. There is no moral persuasion there...at least, no legitimate, truthful moral persuasion, even if it goes on as a merely-linguistic game.

You're inviting totalitarianism, you know.

That society will not collapse into chaotic hedonism has two possible explanations: one, that you're right; but two, that the residue of conventional morality will continue, for a time, to restrain such impulses, but in a declining way. And eventually, the reasoning behind the idea that there is no substance to morality is bound to take hold of more and more people, precipitating gradual socio-moral decline.

In other words, we shouldn't expect hedonistic chaos to come quickly. We should expect it to come gradually, but increasingly and inevitably. And I might add that we should expect to see seismic eruptions between the forces of moral conservatism and those of moral permissiveness. We should anticipate moral-worded "wars," and increasing erosion of social coherence, increasing antipathies on both sides, and eventual decline into a more general Moral Nihilism.

And is that second explanation not exactly the right fit with what we now see?

And we should anticipate as well (just has happened during the Roman Empire or the Weimar Republic) the increasing of public fears of loss of stability and social control, rising uncertainties as to the future, economic turmoil, political polarization...and inevitably, the rise of a totalitarian leader who, in exchange for unprecedented powers of control, will reassert order by force upon the gathering chaos. And people will give him that power, because they are afraid, confused, debauched and lost.

That's our future, I think, under that moral paradigm.

I'm more inclined to think that I'm right and that it will not matter.

Well, it has in the past. People can only stand just so much moral decay, because it issues in social chaos. Eventually, everybody gets sick to death of being foul and dirty, or of having no rules to guide their lives, or of watching their society fall apart economically, or never being able to predict what's coming next, or to trust the government to do its job. And when they reach the saturation point, that's when the new totalitarian(s) appears.

Society is soon "cleaned up." The economics are restored. The streets are swept and quiet again. Children can go to school. And everybody is very relieved that some order has returned to life...even if it's cost the surrendering of a few personal freedoms...

We see the rise and fall of entire civilizations all the time looking back.

We do. And with every civilizational fall, we also "see" ruin, misery, suffering, starvation, tyranny, and piles of corpses. So "see" in your sentence, is doing a lot of work, there. Babylon, Greece, Rome, France, Germany, Russia, China...name your "fall," and these are thing things you get with it.

If that's where we're headed, then it's not a matter you and I can simply dispassionately note, as if to say, "Oh well...these things happen."

Well, the notion is that "goodness" has to be defined somehow. If God's attitudes, values, beliefs, or commands play a causal, definitional part in what the property of goodness is, then that is DCT.

No, no, it's not.

DCT has that middle word: "command." It presupposes that the reason something is right or wrong is that God "commands" it. But that is not the case, at all: it is right or wrong because it reflects the character of God AND because it does, God also commands it. In DCT, the "command" is doing the work; in my description, it does not do any work in "making" something right. It's "right" already, before God "commands" it. It's right because it conforms to the character and nature of God.

But now we can't account for the intuition. It becomes complete cypher. Why should people (mistakenly) be inclined to think that the creator of a thing has some special warrant for disposing of that thing that others lack?

And yet, that's exactly what we DO think.

I couldn't tell you why belief in things like moral oughts is so prevalent in humans.[/quote]
No, I'm asking you about this particular moral intuition, one you have already admitted you share, in some measure.

Ordinarily, we all think the creator of an art object or perhaps an invention or a creation of some other kind, should have prime say in the disposition of the thing, at least at the outset. And we can't think of anyone who ought obviously to have more.

Why is that so? That's my question.

I think it's likely that many people value creators of paintings hanging them as they like because we have many values about property, and we have empathy...

Halt.

What makes "empathy" a moral quality? What convinces us we have any "duty" to pay attention to it? Or is this just another "feeling"? (And if so, we can ignore it.) It cannot then explain anything.

Indeed, which hierarchies are which are probably arbitrary if there isn't moral realism. I think that still accurately describes the world that we see either way: whether moral realism is true or not, it seems our value hierarchies just are what they are (because even on moral realism, some people value differently than others)

Then the existence of value hierarchies themselves becomes inexplicable. They must appear without justification, on no basis, with no criteria involved.

And yet, they do not. People give reasons for their value hierarchies. They debate the order of value hierarchies. And we even agree, in most cases, with the hierarchies of others. (For instance, as I say, it would take a very rare person to believe that the saving of a life ought to rank below the eating of an ice cream cone...regardless of the flavour. )

Yes, this is why I've said that our values are some combination of nature and nurture;

No, that's not good enough, obviously. That's what's called "the genetic fallacy," which is when we are asked to justify something, and instead, we just talk about its origin...a very different issue.

Here, we need not just a hypothesis about origins, but a justification for the legitimacy of the hierarchy that places life above ice cream. For nothing about either "nature" or "nurture" does that -- not unless we have a prior certainty that "Thou shalt follow thy nature," or "Thou shalt not depart from thy nurture" is an unimpeachable axiom.

And clearly, neither is.

Because some hard version of doxastic voluntarism is false: we don't choose what our values are.

Oh. Determinism.

Well, I don't believe that. And I don't think you do, either, even if you maybe still suppose you do. I say that because you are here, discussing these concepts with me, debating, exchanging positions and reasons, arguing, and so on. That means you must suppose my values can change, and aren't simply handed to me by nature and nurture. You must think I can "change my mind."

And I suppose the same of you.

Values can change, I've argued this before in this conversation.

Then, again, the nature-nurture-culture explanations are empty. (and again, the genetic fallacy) That values can change is enough to tell us that none of these things is actually determinative at all. So we need a new explanation, one that this time can tell us how it is possible that people can change values, since they manifestly do so against nature, nurture and culture, all three.

I am merely pointing out that people don't have conscious control over changing their values.

Oh, I think it's quite obvious they do. Values are a choice, not a given.

Even among the unthinking, there are only some values that are unchosen and unexamined; there are always others that are selected by the individual, for motivations he or she has of his or her own.

I can't sit here and just will myself to suddenly start valuing genocide, no matter how hard I earnestly tried out of some sick mental experiment. It isn't possible.

Apparently, it is...and rather easily, too. I was telling Harbal about all the studies that have been done on torturers in places like the Third Reich, or South American prisons, or in occupied lands. And the overwhelming finding of these studies is that ordinary people can be, in a relatively short time and with relatively little effort, be turned into monsters capable of the most revolting attrocities.

Two books, just to start: "Hitler's Willing Executioners," and "Ordinary Men."

We don't control our values, not consciously.

Yep, we do. I'm quite certain we do.

The only people who don't are those who follow nothing but what are called "received values." But the very term itself indicates that these are not the only sorts of "values" one can have; and critiques of them show that cognitively chosen "values" can outweigh the "received" ones.

That's actually fairly routine.

For instance, I bet I couldn't convince you that I'm actually an extraterrestrial beaming down these messages to Earth.

No, but that's only because of the lack of evidence and reasons you might be able to produce. The reason you couldn't get me to beleive that is not because I'm locked into nature-nurture, but because it's a prima facie implausible explanation, for which you have nowhere near adequate opportunity to change my mind.

But if you swooped down and took me on your spaceship, I'm quite sure I would change my mind.

You might say the obvious "well it's technically possible," but you wouldn't help but to doubt it. You couldn't just decide to furrow your brow, think really hard, and force yourself to actually believe it.

Well, only because that's not how beliefs ever change. Beliefs change when one perceives sufficient reasons for abandoning one theory and adopting another. They don't change arbitrarily.

You've defined down "conscious control" to mean nothing more than "arbitrary will." But that the choice to believe or disbelieve, especially when we have two fairly plausible theories in hand, is very much an ordinary thing.

...we can raise awareness

That's Marxist language, I hope you're "aware".

And it partakes of an obvious contradiction with your view.

You can't "raise" that which is not "lower." You've set up a hierarchy again. But we have, as yet, no grounds for so doing that you've been able to provide us.

An altruist could go from a moral realist to a moral nonrealist and would still be an altruist (case in point: myself).

Right. This is something I always try to point out immediately: that one's behaviour and one's beliefs can be at variance.

That is the case with Atheists, I think. They are often quite "good" or "conventionally moral" people in their behaviours. But they lack the reasons for being that, as opposed to being morally wretched. And that's the difference between them and the Theists: the Theists can live with a coherence between their beliefs and their actions; the morally-behaving Atheist has no reasonable explanation for why his own actions are actually "better" than, say, recreational cannibalism, if such a thing should come to suit him later.

The moral skeptic would just say that by "better" they mean they value non-cannibalism more than cannibalism, and that they suspect you do too, so they're using language you can agree on.

Oh, very clearly not.

They're not using the language the same way I am, at all. (And they have no legitimate use for the word "better.") They are using it on non-cognitivist assumptions, and I on mroal-objectivist ones.

But I don't think the non-cognitivist response there is even ingenuous. I think the alleged "non-cognitivist" knows darn well that cannibalism is immoral. I don't think he "feels" that less than I do, nor that he fails to suspect it's objectively true. I take it he just wants to keep his theory intact, in spite of the morally reprehensible position it forces him to.

But there will be points at which we run out of ability to reconcile. To float a relevant example, we disagree over whether it's moral to call men "women." And I don't think we're likely to make progress on a world in which that is even an option. So there will always be sticking points, so long as values are a thing. And it's not apparent to me that compromise is always possible. Nevertheless, there's merit in eliminating everything upon which we can agree from the field of discussion, so as to get to the truly vexed issues, where they win-and-lose outcomes are unavoidable.

Sociologists refer to this situation as "irreconcilable moral pluralism," or "incommensurability." It means that compromise always has its limits; and in a situation of genuine moral multiculturalism, some "cultures" are going to end up being the losers, and some more the winners...it's inevitable. It didn't used to be thought, among sociologists, that that is the way things were. Guys like Dewey, for example, plugged for what they called "Judeo-Christian consensus" in society, and hoped that ALL human values, worldwide, would eventually be shown to be reconcilable. But as moral multiculturalism has continued to diversify, that hope has been abandoned entirely. "Incommensurability" is now the accepted fact.

I wasn't familiar with that term, that's an interesting aside

.

Really? It's in all the literature these days. Here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/valu ... ensurable/

But it's not an "aside," actually. It's very germaine. It means that in the "values" battles, there are going to be winners and losers, and there is absolutely nothing anybody can do to prevent that from being the case. No amount of alleged "tolerance" or "inclusion" or "I'm-okay-you're-okay-ness" is going to cure that. So we cannot avoid a hierarchy of values -- not so long as we live in a pluralistic society.

The thing that bothers me is the deadnaming thing,

Aha!

The concept "deadnaming" is of extremely recent and deliberate coining. It was never even a thing people could possibly worry about until transing started. And THAT is what upsets you?

I'll warrant you didn't get your antipathy for "deadnaming" from your nurture. And you sure as heck didn't get it from nature. So where did you get it from?

I'll answer, because I know the answer. You got it from your new friends when you joined their circle. Before that, it never even occured to you, and you had no idea it existed. But you chose your de-valuing of "deadnaming" out of reaction to your new circle. And you chose it consciously.

I did have to ask myself if your intentions were cruel or not,

My intention is to return all people to the state in which they are the best, healthiest and most likely to prosper. And men do that as men, and women do it as women. It's actually cruelty to do otherwise.

So I will continue to "deadname," for two reasons: one is that "deadnaming" is a phony word, and a phony concept, and I refuse to let the accolytes of Karl Marx have access to my language, under any circumstances. And secondly, telling a mentally ill individual he's a woman because that's what his delusions tell him is cruel. He needs treatment, not encouragement in his illness. For his benefit and in respect of the truth, there is no such thing as "deadnaming."

However, for the present purposes, it certainly is an incommensurable value. We can either encourage or fight body dysphoria: we cannot do both.

...for instance even believing "homosexuality is morally wrong" would not trigger this because the intent isn't to be cruel in all cases)

That's very interesting.

So you would not be "triggered" (another made-up, Neo-Marxist diagnosis, I'm afraid: the right word is "offended") because you realize that people who oppose homosexuality can do it out of a genuine belief that the homosexual acts can be bad for people. But you would be "triggered" by those who oppose chemical sterilization of young women, along with the lopping off of their breasts and the ersatz creation of a non-functional male organ out of the tissue of their forearms?

I'm being deliberately blunt in my description here: but accurate, dead accurate, and fair. This is what is going on; and only the cloud of dishonest language that now surrounds "transing" keeps us from realizing it.

How can anybody in their right mind "value" that?

Well, I meant something more like this. On my worldview, our value hierarchies aren't right or wrong, they just are. On the moral realism worldview, some are right, some are wrong, some are "more" right, some are "more" wrong. But I don't understand what this means.

It means the same thing that "hierarchy" means. It means that some things are "better" or "higher priority" than others.

It doesn't matter whether we talk about debate among individuals about their moral hierarchies, or just about the moral hierarchy within a single, particular individual; the issue is the same.

Some values get placed higher than others. And we want to know WHY. What criteria produce such differentials in valuation?

Again, I think it's some combination of nature and nurture.

No good, I'm afraid.

Nature or nurture are not criteria. We're back to the genetic fallacy.

And now we have an additional problem: that my values also change over time. I must be using criteria, therefore, to select what gets higher and what gets lower.

I don't know what it means for there to be a "universal right," or "intrinsic right."

If I may be blunt, I can see that that's because it doesn't fit within your worldview assumptions. So it makes perfect sense that you can't figure out what it might mean. In the world you see yourself as being in, there is no place for such things to have an explanation.

But Locke saw how it worked, and he explained how it worked. But he was a Christian, of course. So I can't ask you to concede his rationale or the ensuing rights.

My nontheism is pliable to being convinced, though. It just takes presenting something that would convince me. I do not find theism convincing and don't think people have sufficient warrant to believe in it, but that's provisional: I know I don't know everything, including not knowing what other people know. But I do see what sorts of arguments and thinking is popular, and I know that what I have seen (which is not inconsiderable) is not convincing to me. I don't understand why it convinces other people.

That's all perfectly fair.

We all come from somewhere, assumptively. And we're all on a journey somewhere, rationally. And so long as we are open to what the best evidence actually reveals to us, it's not going to stagnate and stop.

My complaints about "rights" and "goods" are cognitive complaints, at the end of the day: the complaint is that they aren't sensible.

Do transers have the right not to be "deadnamed"?

...then we're still stuck trying to answer what it would mean to have something like a "universal good."

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "universal good." The phrase is potentially ambiguous. Do you mean, "good that everybody should do," or "a single kind of goodness that is universal"? Can you clear that up?

Well, it's hard to clear up a term that I myself don't know what it means. But I get the sense that when a moral realist says "x is good," they mean something like... given enough perception, or thinking, or information, or whatever is needed, that any thinking agent could agree that x is good.

Hmmm. That's not what the Christian use of "good" would be. It is not the case that human beings, unaided by God, have sufficient perspecuity on their own always to discover what "the good" is. It's not the sort of thing that mere mundane logic can deliver. At most, deduction can take us to the realization that there is a God, and that that God has some preliminary elements of a nature; but to say that we can map the moral as a mere cognitive exercise performed by somebody who doesn't even believe in God...well, neither we nor Nietzsche thought that was possible.

What does that even mean? This is what I'm trying to get answered. It feels like it would mean there's just something about the universe that makes some things undeniably "good" and some things undeniably "bad," which everyone must agree on inspection.

Something about God, not "something about the universe."

God is part of the universe,

Not in Christian thought. He is transcendent of the universe, being its Creator. "Universe" is a physical entity of definite scope and size, and defined by laws and regularities of various sorts. God is not any of that.

But for one, nobody does seem to agree even on inspection,

Yeah, I think there's general agreement, with some variation. But I don't think it's important that there is, anyway. I think it's what we should expect in a moral world with free will beings in it.

Why, though? I mean, I get people even disagree that the Earth is round. But it seems as though you could pick a skeptic up in a shuttle to show them and they would, if they were actually sane, be forced to admit it. If morals are facts, why can there not be arguments that an ignorant, but willing and well-intentioned person turn to in a thoughtful way to agree, "yes, that is true? That must be true?"

Do you want the Christian answer to that?

It's because we don't get our moral knowledge sorted out without God. Really, He intends it that way. It's not something He's going to let us do on our own, because the whole point of morality is to direct us to Him. Absent that, "goodness" has no meaning anyway. (Meanwhile, there are plenty of contributors to the situation who have a stake in us not figuring it out, and ways to keep us from doing it.) So without the direct intervention of God, a person can expect never to be able to figure it out.

As I said, it's not something we can do by arid, impersonal, academic inquiry; we have to invest ourselves in God to know goodness.

and secondly, what does it even mean to be "good" at that point if it's not compared to values?

Well, it means that "values" are not the source of anything, just as eyeballs are not the source of light. Values are our human attempts to approximate the actual "goods" that exist in God. They are "good-detection-attempts," not sources of legitimation.

Ok, I can file that away to apply later once I know what a "good" is supposed to be:

No, no...that's the answer. You can't "file it away" without denying yourself that answer.

You're looking for a defnition of "goodness" as if it were a thing-in-itself, rather than an attribute of God. And you're never going to find it, on those terms.

If P is a good person, then we should be able to give a description of good using P's qualities alone: even if it is not the maximal possible goodness. So let me ask this:

Can we describe what goodness is just using P, without invoking God?

No. We can only describe the extent to which a person (P) is behaving in harmony with the character and will of God. That is what "goodness" is, and will always be.

For example, we could list P's features -- faithful, uncovetous, honest, truthful, free from malice, generous, creative, intelligent, merciful...and so on. All those are good qualities. But when we've done the list, we're no closer to knowing why those are "good" if we don't realize that they are characteristics of God.

If we can't do that -- if we can't define what goodness is in P without invoking God -- then goodness is not a property.

I'm not sure what you mean by "property" here. It's certainly not "a piece of property," like something somebody can "own." But it is a manifestation of the attributes of God, and such things are always good.

We may eventually have to move on to talk about God to contextualize P's property of goodness, but initially, we should just be able to talk about what P's property of goodness means.

There are tasks that are simply impossible, because they are incoherent. To know what "goodness" means, you have to really understand how a property associates with God. Absent that, you haven't "understood" that property at all.

It's like trying to unpack the word "bachelor" without referring to the concepts "maleness" and "matrimony." What you're left with is going to be nothing that does any justice to the word "bachelor," even if you can think of something to say.

My answer to this is simply that most people are not philosophers, and for historical reasons, most people are nominally moral realists.

So they're just silly and wrong? Or at least, ignorant and naive?

Social justicers are just ignorant proles, who can't extract themselves from the moral language they have been taught? So they really have no justification in any of what they want?

If that turns out to be the case, I really hope they never get any of it. We should hardly want the ignorant and naive to be shaping our society for us. They seem to be flying without a plane.

I don't look down at humans for not all being philosophers, so I don't think in these terms, no. That they use moral language is fairly inconsequential.

Oh, not a bit!

They lean on it like a titanium crutch...for everything.

"Injustice" is a moral term. "Oppressor" is a moral condemnation. "Oppressed" is laden with the assumption that "oppression" is wrong. Or what about "equity," or "inclusion," or "empathy," or "reparations"? These, and all the terms they employ, are loaded to the rafters with intended moral weight...even though most of them are used in nonsense ways, and applied to things that don't fit them at all.

No, they live by moralizing. It's all they've really got. If people ever stop hearing moral tones behind their SJ language, they're dead in the water.

This is so close to something cognizable, I think. So people value goodness as a property, so they would value God for having the most of that property: that's completely sensible. But that doesn't tell us what the property is that's being valued, though.

That's because we're never supposed to locate the property-in-itself, in abstraction from God. We're supposed to be God-aspirers, looking constantly to understand more of our own situation by successive approximations to the character of God, in which the perfections for which you are looking are perfectly found. We're supposed to want to be with Him, so as to participate in those perfections. We are not independent monads, running around this mudball for our own sake. We're supposed to need God in order to enter into these things.

God wants us to know and love Him. And if we could have the "perfections" without the Perfect One, we would have no further need of association with Him, would we? We would be independently possessed of all we needed to know. (Sounds like Genesis, doesn't it? The Deceiver says to the woman, "God knows that in the day you eat of the fruit of the tree, you shall be like God, knowing good and evil.")

Yet this frustratingly doesn't bring me any closer to knowing what the property of "goodness" is supposed to be. Do you notice that?

Yes. Because you're asking for what you cannot have on the terms you insist on asking for it.

I don't think you do it intentionally, but can you see how a noncognitivist might feel frustration going through their whole adult lives saying "I can't get anyone to define this for me," and then, in fact, no one ever does?

Well, there's the obvious conclusion: morality is not a thing that non-cognitivism can make any sense of. But that's not the fault of morality; it's a failing of non-cognitivism -- if morality is real.

I'm not frustrated in a mad way, but can you see how it might seem like noncognitivism is justifiable?

No, really...I can't. I can see how somebody can choose to believe in it, in order to get away from morality. But I cannot see that having so done, the non-cognitivist is in any position to know anything about the thing he's refused to recognize. And that will only frustrate him or her so long as he/she cares enough about morality to keep wanting to understand it.

That the absence of evidence for moral realism can begin to feel like evidence of absence?

Again, you keep reminding me of somebody who says, "I'll believe in God when you can make Him come to me on my terms," never realizing that if God is an entity I can make come to him on his terms, it won't be God at all. By definition, God is not at the beck-and-call of IC, though He will sometimes graciously condescend to act in IC's life; but God does not do dances for skeptics.

The "absence" in question is a product of you having banished the answer. So it doesn't mean there's an absence of evidence at all.

Can you see how this is a labyrinth of frustrating non-answers, and I mean this politely, and not insultingly to you personally?

Of course. I'm not at all offended. And, I trust, I'm not offending you either...even when I disagree.

I wonder, does it concern you if there isn't a straight answer to this question?

For the non-cognitivist? No, I find it unsurprising.

Would it bother me, if I had no such answer? Plausibly. But I think I do have the right answer.

What if the non-cognitivist is right?

It really wouldn't matter anymore, then.

It would mean that we were just accidental animals on an accidental mudball in space, torturing ourselves with speculations about "morality" that never existed. And that universe wouldn't even waste a hollow laugh on us, and we twisted and tortured ourselves about it. So "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die," would be the only wisdom we could practice.

We can safely assume that God values all good things:

Careful there...

We cannot let that slide, in our thinking, into meaning, "God values things BECAUSE they are ALREADY good." That's not right. But that is what your alleged paradox requires us to do.

What we need to understand, instead, is "God values things because He created them to reflect the goodness of His nature." God values love because He is loving. God values holiness because He is holy. God values persons because He is the Great Person. God values truth because there is no lie in Him...

If “good” is defined as “reflecting the character of God” then what part of the character of God is “good” reflecting? Unless I’m quite mistaken, it can only mean God’s values!

"Good" is a comprehensive adjective, in reference to God. There is no part of God that is not "good." His justice is good, His holiness is good, His wisdom is good, His mercy is good, His love is good...

Can you see that this doesn't tell me what good is?

Yep. Because "good" isn't a thing-in-itself.

I could take what you just said and replace "good" with "slithey" and get just as much meaning out of it, which is none.

Actually, (side note) there is a lexicon for that poem, and "slithey" means "slimy and lithe."

Well, again...you're not going to get an answer to that question in a non-cognitivist worldview...because non-cognitivism itself assumes there is no such thing as "goodness."

But the problem is only assumptive.

It's in the terms you're dictating to God.

And, maybe He won't meet with you on this until you deal with something, or change something...assumptively, personally, spiritually, whatever.

Have you considered that possibility?

[Age]

Existence is a state, a condition. It cannot be by "itself." It always refers to the condition of something, the state it is in.

Existence is also not a "cause." It doesn't make things happen.

What you're making is called "a category error."

When God said "I am that I am" He was giving a voice to existence itself .

No, it was His voice.

He was revealing Himself to Moses (Ex. 3:14) actually. He was telling Moses that He is the self-existent One. Just as Jesus told the Pharisees the same thing (John 8:58).

If, to you, God is eternal and thee self-existent One, but thee Universe, Itself, is not eternal nor is a self-existent One, then explain what the actual difference is between this God 'thingy', besides your claim that It is male gendered, and the Universe, Itself, to you.

[Age]

I've taken quite a bit of time to ponder this and fashion a reply.

If only discourse with you wasn't so darn useful, maybe I could get some sleep.

Anyway, at length, I've gotten back to your very substantial and thoughtful reply. I've taken the liberty of shortening as many passages as I could, putting in "..." to indicate, as much as I could, when something substantial would need to be tracked from a previous message. But I'm sure you remember what you wrote, and it was necessary in order to keep this from becoming the reply that ate Manhattan.

When I try to understand what it is, it always goes like this:

Person: You ought to value x.

Me: Ok, but I don't hold that value. Why ought I value x?...

P: Goodness is a property that's objectively defined, not personally defined.

M: Objectively defined how?

Different realists answer from there in different ways, so I'll stop the mock conversation there. This is also pretty much the point in this conversation that we're at now with my questions to you regarding what goodness means.

I don't think we actually are, Cat.

We're far past that, in fact. I've suggested that the word "good" means "conformable to the character and wishes of God."

Now, I understand why somebody who'd already decided not to entertain even the possibility of God existing might find that answer unhelpful.

Have you already decided not to entertain even the possibility that God does not exist?

If you were to say, "No", then, just so you are aware, your writings here show otherwise.

At the same time, I suggest it's the right answer...or very close to being the right way to put it. So there really isn't an alternative.

The way 'you' twist and distort things around "immanuel can" in such a fashion so, at first glance, to some people anyway, what 'you' say and write here 'you' make 'your' own conclusion to appear to be logical and to make sense. However, if one just takes a more than a split second to consider what you are saying and meaning here, then what can be clearly seen is just how illogical and nonsensical what 'you' say and write really is.

But the reason some of what 'you' say and write comes across as conclusive is just because 'you', literally, BELIEVE it to be truth.

The so-called, "there really is not an alternative", is another great example of how the human brain is influenced, and controlled, by the belief-system.

Because "immanuel can" BELIEVES wholeheartedly that God exists, and that what "immanuel can" BELIEVES God would accept, then 'that' would have to be irrefutably true, or "there really would be no other alternative".

Just how BELIEFS, themselves, had absolute TOTAL control over adult human beings, back in the days when this was being written, is clearly evidenced and proved True here by this one known here as "immanuel can".

I also understand why you would think that "oughts" have to be amoral and instrumental (or amoral and probabilistic). I have agreed that, given the supposition that the question is not to be answered with reference to God, that there would be no possible answer as to why a moral "ought" would exist.

The actual and irrefutable answer as to, exactly, WHY a moral 'ought' would and DOES exist is very simple and very easy to recognize and KNOW, and BY ALL of 'you' adult human beings, whatever other names 'you' call and know "yourselves" by.

[Age]

So where does the "oughtness" come from?

It doesn't come from the "values" themselves, since those have no objective referent, allegedly. It can't come from the action of "valuing," because it surely must be evident that people can and do "value" many things that you and I would recognize as very bad or even morally reprehensible (according to our own values). If nothing else, saying "Bruce Jenner" fits into this category, for you: I value it as a statement of truth, and you evaluate it as a "deadnaming," which is allegedly bad. So on that point at least, we are "valuing" differently; and thus the "valuing" cannot be making one right or wrong.

So there is one place left, from which the "oughtness" could be emanating: the person. It must be the case, I have to assume, that you hold that because it's a person valuing X or Y, then X or Y becomes an "ought," at least for them.

But it's still hard to see why we should think this is so. After all, a "person" is no more than a contingent being, one thrown into existence by chance forces that created the universe, a universe which cares nothing and has no particular purposes for him/her and is essentially amoral. And this being the assumption, why should we think a "person" has any more special importance or dignity, let alone ability to confer moral duty on things, than has a horse, a fish or a rock?

And, of course, there's the additional problem we just mentioned: that when Cat values something one way, and IC values it differently, both are "persons." Which one of them is able to confer "oughtness" on the situation? Ought we to say "Bruce Jenner," or ought we to say "Kaitlyn"? A "person" stands behind each valuation. Which is the "ought"?

Multiply this problem by this: that at one time, it was perfectly "valuable" for Cat to call Jenner "Bruce," because he was still a male decathlete. Later in time, it "became an ought" that Cat should not, because her evaluation of the situation changed. Now she regards that as "deadnaming," and evaluates "deadnaming" as wrong. But then we can see that even a single person, considered all by herself, can have different valuations of a single act at different times: so which valuation by the person "Cat" produces a duty?

Let's add this all up: "oughtness," then, at least the moral kind, does not come from society, from instrumentality, or from values. It doesn't come from the act of valuing, and it doesn't come from some special glow possessed by the persons doing the valuing.

So why should anybody take any "ought" seriously at all? Why is any "ought" even incumbent on Cat herself? Why does she even need the word "ought," since nothing exist that can impose or assert any moral duty upon her, not even herself?

That is the position: that there is no evidence there is a moral ought at all, that all oughts that exist are instrumentalist oughts (which are all means to the end of furthering a value and come in the form of if/then statements).

I do not understand what a moral ought even means (what it means to have an imperative without a hypothetical: without an "if you value/then you should" structure).

When I try to understand what it is, it always goes like this:

It is examples like this obviously False, Wrong, and Incorrect claim here why these people, back in those days, could never find nor arrive at what the irrefutable Truth actually IS.

Person: You ought to value x.

Me: Ok, but I don't hold that value. Why ought I value x?

P: You have a duty to value it.

M: Ok, but you're just changing one word that I don't understand to another word that I don't understand. What does it mean that I have a duty to value x if I don't experience the personal feeling that I should?

P: It means that you should value it.

M: Ok, 'ought,' 'duty,' 'should,' these are all just the same undefined concept to me if there's an absence of a hypothetical imperative. I suppose you'll say I have an 'obligation' next, and I still won't know what that means. If I don't feel that I have an obligation to value x, then what does it mean to say that I do? It makes sense for me to feel I ought to do y if doing y furthers some value that I hold. But I don't understand what it means that I ought to value x if I don't experience holding that value. What makes it so that I ought to? I understand that you're saying how I feel doesn't matter for this kind of "ought" you speak of, but then I have nothing to give this concept of "ought" any substance to cognitively latch onto. What is it?

P: You should value x because x is good.

M: It doesn't seem good to me.

P: That doesn't matter. x is good in a universal way, not a personal way: whether you personally experience the feeling that x is good or not, x is actually good. The proposition that "if x is good, then for any S, S ought to value x" is true.

M: Ok, so that's using the word "good" in a way that I don't understand. When I say "y is good," I'm saying that y aligns with my values. It's basically another way to say "I value y." I don't know what it means for x to be good if I don't feel that x is good, if I don't value x. What is goodness in this context that you're using?

P: Goodness is a property that's objectively defined, not personally defined.

M: Objectively defined how?

Different realists answer from there in different ways, so I'll stop the mock conversation there. This is also pretty much the point in this conversation that we're at now with my questions to you regarding what goodness means. Maybe this mock conversation helps distill why I'm interested in that so keenly: a lot hinges on whether it can be made sensible.

[Belinda]

Existence is a state, a condition. It cannot be by "itself." It always refers to the condition of something, the state it is in.

Existence is also not a "cause." It doesn't make things happen.

What you're making is called "a category error."

When God said "I am that I am" He was giving a voice to existence itself .

No, it was His voice.

He was revealing Himself to Moses (Ex. 3:14) actually. He was telling Moses that He is the self-existent One. Just as Jesus told the Pharisees the same thing (John 8:58).

God is cause of everything, Who is Himself uncaused.

God is cause of things and events , not in the sense of a locomotive making a train of carriages to move, but in the sense that God is the ground of being of all the things and events.

[Harbal]

God is cause of everything, Who is Himself uncaused.

I remember my son and his friend playing at being super heroes in the garden when they where both quite young.

One would say something like; "I've just shot you".

And the other would reply, "it doesn't matter, I'm bullet proof".

"I shot you with a bazooka".

"Well I'm bazooka proof, as well".

I sometimes wonder if the idea of God was first dreamt up by a couple of kids playing in a garden.

[Sculptor]

God is cause of everything, Who is Himself uncaused.

I remember my son and his friend playing at being super heroes in the garden when they where both quite young.

One would say something like; "I've just shot you".

And the other would reply, "it doesn't matter, I'm bullet proof".

"I shot you with a bazooka".

"Well I'm bazooka proof, as well".

I sometimes wonder if the idea of God was first dreamt up by a couple of kids playing in a garden.

My Dad is a policemen so ner nicky ner ner!!

Well MY Dad is an ineffable eternal being, omnipotent, omnipresent and omni - every thing else and NO RETURNS

[Belinda]

When God said "I am that I am" He was giving a voice to existence itself .

No, it was His voice.

He was revealing Himself to Moses (Ex. 3:14) actually. He was telling Moses that He is the self-existent One. Just as Jesus told the Pharisees the same thing (John 8:58).

If, to you, God is eternal and thee self-existent One, but thee Universe, Itself, is not eternal nor is a self-existent One, then explain what the actual difference is between this God 'thingy', besides your claim that It is male gendered, and the Universe, Itself, to you.

I understand that the universe is not presumed to be eternal or self existent in conversations with astronomers or cosmologists. Sometimes people use 'universe' to mean 'existence itself 'or 'nature'. For reason of this ambiguity 'universe' is not a very good synonym for existence itself, still less for eternity.

I don't ever think of God as a thing among other things albeit a larger more loving more powerful thing. Neither do I think of God as a person with gender, unless I want to show that bossy people hijack the idea of God and make out God is a supernatural Person on their side. Bossy people are traditionally represented as predominantly male gender.
I am aware that my post may be taken to imply I am a believer. I actually am agnostic. However the conversation with IC was about God and I was being objective about the God narrative.

I use capital letters for God because God is traditionally personal and 'God' is His personal name . I use capital letters for pronouns about God as these are traditional and also help to make it clear which person the pronouns refer to.

[Belinda]

God is cause of everything, Who is Himself uncaused.

I remember my son and his friend playing at being super heroes in the garden when they where both quite young.

One would say something like; "I've just shot you".

And the other would reply, "it doesn't matter, I'm bullet proof".

"I shot you with a bazooka".

"Well I'm bazooka proof, as well".

I sometimes wonder if the idea of God was first dreamt up by a couple of kids playing in a garden.

My Dad is a policemen so ner nicky ner ner!!

Well MY Dad is an ineffable eternal being, omnipotent, omnipresent and omni - every thing else and NO RETURNS

So it makes sense to be agnostic as God is not falsifiable. Neither is God verifiable unless the traditional meaning of 'God' is psychologised when a verifiable case can be made for God.

[Age]

No, it was His voice.

He was revealing Himself to Moses (Ex. 3:14) actually. He was telling Moses that He is the self-existent One. Just as Jesus told the Pharisees the same thing (John 8:58).

If, to you, God is eternal and thee self-existent One, but thee Universe, Itself, is not eternal nor is a self-existent One, then explain what the actual difference is between this God 'thingy', besides your claim that It is male gendered, and the Universe, Itself, to you.

I understand that the universe is not presumed to be eternal or self existent in conversations with astronomers or cosmologists.

The earth was also presumed to be flat and in the center of the Universe.

And, in any of these conversations with so-called "astronomers" or "cosmologists", did you ever ask them, 'How could it even be a possibility for the whole Universe to just come into Existence?'

If no, then why not?

Sometimes people use 'universe' to mean 'existence itself 'or 'nature'. For reason of this ambiguity 'universe' is not a very good synonym for existence itself, still less for eternity.

Many people use many words with ambiguity, but this does not seem to be a good reason to not be a very good synonym for one of those things.

To me, to think the Universe 'just began' is absurd as thinking the earth is flat and at the center of the Universe.

And, what do you think 'Universe' is a very good synonym for, exactly?

I don't ever think of God as a thing among other things albeit a larger more loving more powerful thing.

So, to you, God is NOT a 'thing' among other 'things', but is a 'thing', which is just more larger, more loving, and more powerful, than other 'things' are.

Neither do I think of God as a person with gender, unless I want to show that bossy people hijack the idea of God and make out God is a supernatural Person on their side. Bossy people are traditionally represented as predominantly male gender.

From a child's perspective 'you', adult human beings, are so-called "bossy people". But then absolutely EVERY thing is relative to the observer, correct?

I am aware that my post may be taken to imply I am a believer. I actually am agnostic. However the conversation with IC was about God and I was being objective about the God narrative.

Did you think I posed that question to you, or to "immanuel can"?

I use capital letters for God because God is traditionally personal and 'God' is His personal name .

So, you do not think that God is a person, with gender, but here you also say that God is "traditionally person", and a "he".

I use capital letters for pronouns about God as these are traditional and also help to make it clear which person the pronouns refer to.

Okay.