Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:43 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2019 2:28 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:28 am
There is another thread on this similar issue, but I want to highlight this because the argument is very glaring.
I agree with Hume's argument that is no factual 'ought' from factual "is".
The above is purely epistemological and has no substantial practical value.
Theists argued no [a]theist can bring about an 'ought' in terms of morality, other than an omnipotent God.
However I believe there is at least a secular 'ought' that be inferred from "i" which has practical value, i.e.
- "No human[s] ought to destroy* Earth to the extent it is inhabitable for any human being"
Let's tell the story secularly, and see if that's true.
We humans were produced by a gigantic cosmic explosion called "the Big Bang." This "Big Bang," though, was an accident, not the deliberate production of a God. Good so far?
Okay. Now, somehow (and we don't have any idea how) the fragment that came out of this Big Bang, the universe, had a bit on which a strange thing called "life" appeared. Again, this was not by design of God; it was only an accident. Still good?
Okay. Now, some of this "life" became what we call "human," through a process that somehow started, called "evolution." But this process too was merely an accident -- no God produced or oversaw it. Still good?
The way evolution worked was this: some species continued, because they survived a hostile environment. They did this by being the "fittest." But by "fittest" we only mean that they just happened to gain some advantage, not that a God gave them any. Still with me?
Some species died out entirely. It simply turned out that they were not equipped to survive. But this cannot be said to be any kind of tragedy, because this is just how reality works: things that die, die. Things that live, live. There's no rightness or wrongness to what lives or what dies...there's only the harsh fact of survival of the fittest.
Now, let us pause there: is there any step in that story that you would say is not true? Let's be really, really sure, before we end the story. So far, so good?
Finally, the human race died out. They did this because they destroyed themselves. This shows that they were not fit to survive. And there is nobody to lament their passing, and no reason they should not have died. They may have thought they were "fit," but they were not, as it turned out. And the indifferent universe just rolled on as it has since the Big Bang, heading down to heat death, when the ultimate fate of all "life" in the universe, and all activity in it, is to be forever at zero. And this state is to last forever.
Now: how do you get out of that story that human beings morally "ought" to have done anything? Remember that you cannot assume that there was anything "wrong" with any species being eliminated from this impersonal tale of accident and evolution -- things just "happen," and there's no failure of some "plan" if human beings are one of the eliminated species. Further, there's no special importance assignable to the Earth, or to human life -- like all things in the universe, these are just accidental byproducts of a a cosmic explosion. And their passing is of no special status.
Now, how do you get morals out of that?
Noted your point but I have my own explanation;
It is natural Planet Earth will one day orbit inward towards the Sun and the human species will be extinct unless humans can get to another planet in time -A.
Even if A is possible, eventually the Sun [limited in power] of our Solar System will die just like so many stars that are theorized in astronomy. Then the human species will be extinct.
In the secular perspective, there is no right or wrong to the above.
That's the point. There's no morality concerned in the question of human survival, from a secular perspective. Nothing in the indifferent universe exists to say that we have a "duty" to avoid it.
And in any case, you and I both will be long dead when it happens. And since there is no objective moral duty in this (Godless view of the) world, we can't possibly be "wrong" not to take all the advantages we have while we are alive. And if that means we hand over this world to the next generation or to some subsequent generation in poor condition, there's nobody and nothing to say we can't -- or shouldn't.
But if we bring in the theological, then God is evil in bringing about the above or doing nothing to prevent it.
This isn't relevant to the question of whether or not we can get from a secular "is" to a secular "ought," of course. For even if it were true, it would only prove that some OTHER worldviews were not capable of grounding morality, not that the secular one WAS.
However, in point of fact, it isn't true. In the first place, we do not know that it is God's doing that our situation is being "brought about"; for if we have freedom to choose, it's much easier to say that WE are the obvious cause of the problem. But secondly, we do not know (from a secular perspective) that God is "doing nothing to prevent it," since, as secular thinkers only, we do not know what the present doings of God are. In fact, from a secular perspective, we'd be obliged to think God had no doings at all...hence we'd be in no rational position to accuse Him of any dereliction of duty at all.
The reality is while humans are alive till the above inevitable eventuality, there ought to be 'ought' to facilitate survival towards the most optimal levels.
Perhaps there "ought" to be, in some vague sense no secular perspective can explain. But there also isn't such an "ought" from any secular perspective. It's like the famous adage, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," meaning that secularists may WANT there to be an "ought," but that just won't make it so.
Thus despite no ultimate right or wrong - given current knowledge, the human species will certainly be extinct in time, humans are evolved to strive to survive at all costs.
Well, according to the Darwinian story, so is every living organism. But many of them fail, die and disappear forever. And from a Darwinian perspective, the fact that they die is no tragedy...it's just proof that they were not "fit" to "survive" in the first place.
Meanwhile, there is no duty, from a Darwinian perspective, for you to assure my survival, let alone us both to assure the survival of coming generations. Our drive to survive is ours alone...and to give up our own chances at survival would just prove that we too were "unfit" members of our own species, doomed to be removed by the process of Natural Selection from our own herd.
I don't think either of us is willing to turn out to be that, are we?
It is this 'at all costs' we need some sort of effective moral and ethics system to optimize survival for all humans.
Not at all.
You don't need to see me survive, and I don't need you to do so. I perhaps need
somebody to survive, but only the people relevant to my own survival; and the same is true for you. When push comes to shove, everybody has less right, from a secular perspective, to survive than I do, or from your perspective, than you do. Survival is about keeping ourselves alive, not about sacrificing ourselves to some "good of others" said to exist in the future. For you and I will not be around to see that future anyway.
To be effective, such a moral and ethics system must be imputed with unenforceable secular absolute moral rules as only a guide.
Actually, this will render them completely ineffective. Since they are "unenforceable," and "only a guide," I have no duty -- and not even a fear -- that compels me to regard them as "absolute."
The bottom line of all this is exactly what you've suggested above: "In the secular perspective, there is no right or wrong to the above."
Yes, indeed.