Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 1:49 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 11:43 am
...we also have principles by which we can arrive at some evaluation of a moral situation.
Oh, I'm very interested in your exposition of these "principles" you say we have. What do you think they are?
I know what mine are, but those of others may well be different. Honesty is a principle I try to stick to, but it might sometimes be necessary to compromise on that if it happens to conflict with other principles. Without the assumption of honesty, communication is worthless. To try to avoid any action that seems likely to cause a negative change to someone's life is another. I wouldn't want to do something that resulted in someone losing their job, for example, unless there was a compelling reason why they should lose it. I always prefer to put more in than I take out, because I would prefer to feel taken advantage of rather than having it the other way round, so that is another of my principles. I don't suppose I always stick rigidly to my principles, but I try to, and doing so is my first impulse. The fact that there is no "objective" authority to which I can look for endorsement of my moral principles does not stop them from meaning something to me.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:There is nothing in the definition of morality that demands it must be paid attention to. You don't have to pay attention to God and the Bible; you choose to, and I choose to pay attention to my own moral sense and conscience.
Actually, there IS something that says you do have to pay attention: the fact that all good is centered in God, and that God Himself will judge the world. One can decide not to pay attention: what one can't decide is not to face the consequences of that decision.
But that doesn't apply to me, of course. The God part, I mean. Of course there are consequences to ignoring your moral obligations, even when they are self imposed, but the fact that you are able to ignore a moral imperative does not strip it of it's moral quality.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:IC wrote:It's not "moral" or obligatory or serious in any way. Maybe you want to follow it. But maybe you should just get over it. How would you know which you should do?
Well I have to figure it out myself,
How?
The same way you would, I suppose. You have your own reasons for thinking that it is important that you act in accordance with what you believe to be the will of God. I can't think of any justifiable reason for your thinking that, but I don't know what possible reasons you might actually have. Likewise, I have reasons for thinking it is important that I live up to the moral standards I set for myself. There are situations when it can be difficult to know what to do, because it is not always clear what all the moral implications of a situation and your response to it might be, but that is a possibility that must be no less likely for you than for me. Your question seems to be based on the assumption that your sense of duty must be superior to mine, but I don't see how you could actually know that.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:In both our cases, the final decision about what we do is ours.
That much is true, of course, because we have free will. It doesn't mean that the decision we make is going to be right or consequence free.
Right relative to what? I imagine you mean morally right, in which case we can only measure the decision against what we each believe to be morally right.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:There is no such thing as ultimate right and wrong; there is only right and wrong in relation to preferred human outcomes.
Instrumental "effectiveness," you mean?
That won't do. If a person's "preferred human outcome" is the death of his neighbour, the fact that a kitchen knife is his most effective instrument to do it will not make it right.
I never said anything about effective instruments. If you wish to see your neighbour dead, the moral correctness of that desire must be judged by you. How it will be judged by others is a separate matter, and not really within your control.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:"Twinges" -if you must diminish and degrade them to that- are all we have.
I'm not diminishing them: but I'm afraid you are, without realizing it.
Your decision to dismissively call strong feelings and emotional compulsions "twinges" is intended to trivialise them, and create a false impression of their significance. So the act is very much being committed by you, and certainly not without your realising it.
No Christian believes that the deliverances of conscience are mere "twinges." But non-Theists would have to, in all honesty, admit to themselves that "twinges" are all that they are.
I am a non-theist who doesn't have to believe that, and who indeed does not believe that, so I, in all honesty, have to admit no such thing to
myself.
I'm quite able to rethink, and do it all the time. But I've spent a lot of time exploring Atheist responses...not just here, on this site, as you can see, but by reading the foundational works of the major theorists in the Atheist "field" or pantheon of alleged greats, like Nietzsche, Darwin, Marx, Freud,
I don't know why you bothered to read those theorists, but you could have just come straight to me.
And if any of these have better answers, I try to take them seriously, and figure out whether they've got a point. Consequently, I'm very, very interested in anything new some Atheist has to say about the subject of evil
I only recognise the word, "evil", as an adjective, describing something unusually malicious, and that's about all I have to say about it.
I want to confront it. That's why I'm asking you for your exposition of the "principles" you say secularists can have in guiding their moral sense. I have heard a few such principles, such as the principle of utility (Mill, Bentham), the principle of the categorical imperative(s) (Kant), or the principle of the golden mean (Aristotle) and really would like to know if you can add to my stock of such things to think about.
I can only hope you have managed to glean the information you are looking for from my comments to you in this current reply.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:If you found your capacity for thought was leaving you morally bankrupt,
Yeah, yeah.
No, it was Atheism's answers that were morally bankrupt. But you knew what I meant. Still, I'd actually consider it a great thing if you could give me some "principles" they so far have failed to think of. And I think they'd have reason to thank you, as well.
I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about the theory or practice of "Atheism".
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:I don't think there is anything wrong with human beings, or with the "order" of the world.
Sure you do. You think it's "wrong" that Christians sometimes show up and challenge people's self-comforting existing beliefs, don't you?
No, it is their attempts to get other people to share their own self comforting beliefs that I think wrong. I think it is morally questionable to try to persuade and influence people into religious belief, but that is not the same as saying there is something wrong with human beings. I don't think there is either anything right or wrong with human beings; just as I don't think there is anything right or wrong with elephants, or shrimps.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:I never really know what people mean by "evil".
That's exactly the problem all Atheists also have. They really can't say.
I wonder why they see that as a problem.
But you say there are "principles," so maybe you could talk about them in specific, and do us all a favour in that regard.
If you want to ask me specifically about any particular principle I've already mentioned, I'll try my best to answer.