Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:01 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 3:20 pm
But the important point is merely this: how do you show that "intelligence" or any other quality you hope is increasing, is "good," if you are a subjectivist? For then, you have to say it's not
objectively good. So subjectivism implies it's only good for those who prefer to think it is, but they may be
objectively wrong, for all we can know.
Intelligence has been defined...
No, no...I know what intelligence IS. What you need to show is that, in the moral sense, we OUGHT to value intelligence.
Such abilities can be measured objectively.
Yes, but measurability doesn't prove they are morally valuable qualities. And that they are
objectively measurable doesn't make them
objectively moral. We can also very precisely measure the number of murders or rapes, or the number of slaves. That won't show that murder, rape or slavery are moral.
Btw, I believe you are ignorant or resist the fact that what is 'objective' is intersubjective.
No. I'm aware of that error. It's not plausible, for obvious reasons.
To say that something is "intersubjective" doesn't make it any more moral than if it's "subjective." The "inter" doesn't add anything except numbers. And to think it did would be to fall prey to a very obvious bandwagon fallacy.
That is no such thing as absolutely absolute objectivity.
You mean "there"? Not "that," right?
No, that's not true. What God knows is absolutely objective.
E.g. scientific objectivity [you cannot deny this?] is conditioned upon scientists as subjects, thus ultimately subjective via intersubjectivity.
I've already said that scientific or empirical knowledge is all only probabilistic, not absolute.
As such, what is objectively good is based on results that are consistently net good.
No: that's still an "is" with no "ought."
The increase of IQ [as defined] of the average humans over the last 5000 years has a net-good result while providing for the possibility of its potential negatives.
"Net-good result" and "potential negatives" are value-laden terms. Which scheme of values are you drawing on, when you make that assessment? Your own intuitions, your society's beliefs, or something more objective?
The fact that there is a greater % of non-theists at present as compared to 2000 or even 500 years ago is an indication there is a corresponding increase in rational intelligence among humans.
That's actually statistically untrue. You're perhaps judging by your own locale. On a world scale, 92% remain "religious" in one form or another, 4% remain agnostic, which means they are still open to it as a possibility, and only 4% are outright Atheists. (CIA Factbook) If you want to argue that numbers make a difference, you'd have to say that Atheism is not particularly popular, and statistically, it isn't growing but shrinking (Neuroscience mag.)
So you're making an assumption that being an Atheist causes, or indicates, intelligence. But that's not a causal link anyone has been able to show, even when they really wanted to. What we know is that more-intuitive people tend to be religious, but also so do many of the hyper-intelligent. This only suggests that some "religious" awareness is a general human inclination, more likely to include a broad range of persons, but Atheism is a narrow taste of the semi-educated West. It doesn't suggest that more-intelligent people are automatically secular, far less that Atheism causes intelligence or correlates with it causally.
You have to interpret the data carefully. As the old axiom goes, "Correlation is not causality." What seems to be the case is that more people of middle intelligence choose Atheism than those of low or high intelligence...but it's not clear why they do, nor do the data suggest that their doing so is a better or more intelligent thing.
Theism is based on faith [irrational and not-intelligent]
That's perhaps your defintion of "faith." It's not mine, and it's not a lot of people's. Personally, it seems to me incredibly naive.
But as you can see, some sort of level of "faith" (your definition) of some kind is manifest in at least 96% of the population, and I would make the case it's 100%, since Atheism is, itself nothing more than a "faith" position (if we use your definition). That is, Atheism is non-evidentiary. It's a wish, not a set of data.