TRUMP AHEAD?

[commonsense]

Morality isn’t necessary.

Crime and Punishment refutes that quip.

It's about the effects of bucking inherent morality.

What kind of morality did the ancient humans need?

[Immanuel Can]

We know that everybody has subjective moral opinions, so the only question is, is there any other kind of morality;

It isn't, actually. Because you haven't established that any of those opinions are actually "moral."

I know for sure that I have feelings about right and wrong, and that is what morality is, and that is what I am referring to when I talk about morality. You are obviously talking about something else entirely.

I'm not talking about the incoherent concept you think "morality" is, that's for sure. But you don't "know" that morality is "feelings," and it doesn't make a lick of sense to equate the two. It would mean that somebody with the contrary "feeling" would be equally "moral" to you -- which would then mean that "moral" has no meaning at all...it describes everything, and thus nothing in particular.

I don't see how there could be such a thing as objective moral truth,

And you never will. Having arbitrarily ruled out the existence of God,

I find your idea of God completely implausible, and have ruled it out on that basis, so I dispute having done it arbitrarily.

And yet, you don't know what my "idea of God" is, and it wouldn't matter if I got it wrong, so far as this debate goes. What's of singular importance is a) does some God exist, and b) what's his real moral nature? If God does exist, it matters only to your own eternal disposition whether you believe He does or not. It won't make Him not-exist. And it won't make Him other than He is.

And it makes no difference, anyway, because I don't recognise God as being an objective source of moral truth if he did exist.

It doesn't really matter what you "recognize." The truth is going to be the truth anyway. You'll only hurt yourself.

Morality is always relative to something, like our attitude towards the suffering of others, for example. Why should we care about the suffering of others? I don't know, but most people do, and I don't see what difference God makes to that.

Where do you think we got the whole concept of owing mercy to sufferers? You think that fell sideways out of evolution?

and I'm pretty sure you don't have an argument that would make me change my mind.

I'm thinking that's probably true. Unfortunate, but maybe inevitable. I can't change your erroneous assumption for you.

I'm not aware of presenting you with any assumptions.

"There is no God" -- pure assumption. "Morality is whatever I subjectively make it" -- not only pure assumption, but obvious illogic. There are two for you.

[Immanuel Can]

Morality isn’t necessary.

Crime and Punishment refutes that quip.

It's about the effects of bucking inherent morality.

What kind of morality did the ancient humans need?

There's no ancient society that doesn't have a conception of morality. Just like there are no ancient Atheist societies, and no ancient societies where women ruled over men. Some things are just universal.

[Sculptor]

ANy random woman much smarter than Immanuel Can

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ExmditA-rCA

[Sculptor]

Crime and Punishment refutes that quip.

It's about the effects of bucking inherent morality.

What kind of morality did the ancient humans need?

There's no ancient society that doesn't have a conception of morality. Just like there are no ancient Atheist societies, and no ancient societies where women ruled over men. Some things are just universal.

Wrong on both counts

[Immanuel Can]

What kind of morality did the ancient humans need?

There's no ancient society that doesn't have a conception of morality. Just like there are no ancient Atheist societies, and no ancient societies where women ruled over men. Some things are just universal.

Wrong on both counts

Great that you think so, so confidently. Prove it.

[Harbal]

It isn't, actually. Because you haven't established that any of those opinions are actually "moral."

I know for sure that I have feelings about right and wrong, and that is what morality is, and that is what I am referring to when I talk about morality. You are obviously talking about something else entirely.

I'm not talking about the incoherent concept you think "morality" is, that's for sure.

No, it isn't what I think morality is; it is what morality is to me, and to a good many others here, it seems. It is something that I incorporate into my daily life, and it has a function. Say what you like about it, but this is morality as I know and understand it, whereas what you point to as being morality is something I neither know nor understand.

But you don't "know" that morality is "feelings," and it doesn't make a lick of sense to equate the two. It would mean that somebody with the contrary "feeling" would be equally "moral" to you -- which would then mean that "moral" has no meaning at all...it describes everything, and thus nothing in particular.

The fact that someone's moral opinion differs from mine does not rob mine of meaning as far as I am concerned.

I find your idea of God completely implausible, and have ruled it out on that basis, so I dispute having done it arbitrarily.

And yet, you don't know what my "idea of God" is,

I am taking it to be the God of the Bible.

and it wouldn't matter if I got it wrong, so far as this debate goes. What's of singular importance is a) does some God exist, and b) what's his real moral nature?

If, hypothetically, some entity did exist that conformed to anybody's definition of the word "god", that entity would not necessarily have any concern for morality. And even a "god" that was concerned with human morality would not be an objective source of it. The source of human morality can be nothing other than human.

If God does exist, it matters only to your own eternal disposition whether you believe He does or not. It won't make Him not-exist. And it won't make Him other than He is.

Yes, if the God that you believe in exist, but there is no limit to the different types of God/god one could believe in. I can conceive of a God that has no interest in day to day human activity.

And it makes no difference, anyway, because I don't recognise God as being an objective source of moral truth if he did exist.

It doesn't really matter what you "recognize." The truth is going to be the truth anyway. You'll only hurt yourself.

That principle applies to you just as much as it applies to everyone else. Your beliefs about God do not make them true.

Morality is always relative to something, like our attitude towards the suffering of others, for example. Why should we care about the suffering of others? I don't know, but most people do, and I don't see what difference God makes to that.

Where do you think we got the whole concept of owing mercy to sufferers? You think that fell sideways out of evolution?

We must first have the capacity for morality before its nature can be shaped by concepts, regardless of where those concepts come from. And a concept that has a religious origine is still a human concept. So yes, our moral behaviour, just like the rest of our behaviour, is all down to evolution.

I'm not aware of presenting you with any assumptions.

"There is no God" -- pure assumption.

I would call it an educated or informed opinion, rather than an assumption, but were I forced to call it an assumption, I would also call it a fair one.

"Morality is whatever I subjectively make it" -- not only pure assumption, but obvious illogic.

That wording doesn't represent the meaning of what I have said.

[Sculptor]

There's no ancient society that doesn't have a conception of morality. Just like there are no ancient Atheist societies, and no ancient societies where women ruled over men. Some things are just universal.

Wrong on both counts

Great that you think so, so confidently. Prove it.

You might start chewing on this one.https://www.townandcountrymag.com/socie ... ties-list/
Aside from that there is such a thing as Anthroplogy, and archaeology.

[Walker]

Do you want a rational discussion? If so, then I'll oblige. If not, then you'll have to go solo.

Gary, setting yourself up as the arbiter of rationality is amusing.

Gary, whether formed as question or statement, your go-to input for philosophical discussion consists of: Asking questions of others that others ask of themselves, saying I don’t know, and expressing feeling-based personal opinions, projection, and conjecture-based non-sequiturs often rooted in mis-interpretations which are either intended or not. These habits generate laughter, but not serious philosophical discussion. Even an irrational hypothesis requires a rational presentation to qualify as serious. Graphics and pictures without commentary to at least establish relevance also generate laughter when intended as philosophical commentary.

One of the things that would generate serious philosophical discussion is commenting on why commentary accompanying a picture or graphic is required for that graphic or picture to be part of a serious philosophical discussion, and not a just part of a chuckle. I have already done this, seeing as how that is what caught my eye, and that was a topic I found interesting.

Without commentary, I can only assume that a poster so-wants what they think the graphic expresses, to be true ... based on their unexpressed reasons of why they think the graphic expresses what they think it expresses.

Laughter is good! Assuming a philosophical equivalence between rationally supported opinions and your go-to based opinions, simply on the basis that both are opinions, is also chuckle-inducing.

[Immanuel Can]

I know for sure that I have feelings about right and wrong, and that is what morality is, and that is what I am referring to when I talk about morality. You are obviously talking about something else entirely.

I'm not talking about the incoherent concept you think "morality" is, that's for sure.

No, it isn't what I think morality is; it is what morality is to me, and to a good many others here, it seems.

Then you "incorporate" an idea that isn't even possibly true. It's incoherent -- within itself, regardless of comparison to anybody else's view.

...what you point to as being morality is something I neither know nor understand.

I think you do. You know very well what it is to say to somebody (such as to me) "You're really wrong. What you say is not true. Reality is not in accord with what you say," and so on. That's what I'm saying to you: morality is not what you wish to think it is. What you say is not the truth. You're following an illusion." I think you have lots of experience with that idea.

But you don't "know" that morality is "feelings," and it doesn't make a lick of sense to equate the two. It would mean that somebody with the contrary "feeling" would be equally "moral" to you -- which would then mean that "moral" has no meaning at all...it describes everything, and thus nothing in particular.

The fact that someone's moral opinion differs from mine does not rob mine of meaning as far as I am concerned.

Logically, that's exactly what it does. Your concept of morality describes literally everything that can be conceived in human feelings. Therefore, it describes nothing at all in particular...it fails to add any information to anyone's knowledge of morality at all.

I find your idea of God completely implausible, and have ruled it out on that basis, so I dispute having done it arbitrarily.

And yet, you don't know what my "idea of God" is,

I am taking it to be the God of the Bible.

I can see you don't know all that much about that, either.

and it wouldn't matter if I got it wrong, so far as this debate goes. What's of singular importance is a) does some God exist, and b) what's his real moral nature?

If, hypothetically, some entity did exist that conformed to anybody's definition of the word "god", that entity would not necessarily have any concern for morality.

"Necessarily"? No. It could be the kind of "god" conceived by the Deists or even the Gnostics, and then that entity would not have any concern for morality. But then, the same conclusion would follow: that there's no such thing as "morality," and anybody who thinks there is, is simply suffering a delusion.

The source of human morality can be nothing other than human.

Human beings aren't "necessary" beings. There was a time when the Earth existed with no humans on it. Human beings all die. All are merely contingent beings...they need not exist, there was a time when they didn't, and there's a time when they won't. So there is no such thing as "morality." The feelings people have are even more contingent, transient and ephemeral than they themselves are; it's all smoke.

If God does exist, it matters only to your own eternal disposition whether you believe He does or not. It won't make Him not-exist. And it won't make Him other than He is.

Yes, if the God that you believe in exist, but there is no limit to the different types of God/god one could believe in.

Sure there is. But I grant you there are a multiplicity of delusions and errors around in that regard. But so what? There are plenty of wrong-thinkers in the world, just as there is an infinite number of wrong answers to "What is 2+2?" That doesn't even remotely imply there's less likely to be a thing called a "4."

And it makes no difference, anyway, because I don't recognise God as being an objective source of moral truth if he did exist.

It doesn't really matter what you "recognize." The truth is going to be the truth anyway. You'll only hurt yourself.

That principle applies to you just as much as it applies to everyone else. Your beliefs about God do not make them true.

I agree. Though if I am wrong, I can't do myself any harm by being wrong, really, since if you're right, then all of life is a matter of being born, thinking a bunch of nonsense, then dying and being done. Whether one lives in a state of delusion no longer matters. In fact, to be happily-deluded might even be preferable to knowing the truth... At least one would have a few pleasant feelings between womb and tomb...

Morality is always relative to something, like our attitude towards the suffering of others, for example. Why should we care about the suffering of others? I don't know, but most people do, and I don't see what difference God makes to that.

Where do you think we got the whole concept of owing mercy to sufferers? You think that fell sideways out of evolution?

We must first have the capacity for morality

Why do we? That's the question you're not really grappling with. Why should you forego your own advantage for somebody else?

So yes, our moral behaviour, just like the rest of our behaviour, is all down to evolution.

Survival of the fittest, or survival of your species? Which is it you think is driving that train? But if it's a matter of "evolution," then it's a contingent matter, as well. There's no good reason we have to obey any "morality" at all, since the great god "Evolution" has no particular opinion about what its accidental creations do, or what happens to them. Why do we owe it to bow at that "god's" altar, by being "moral"?

I'm not aware of presenting you with any assumptions.

"There is no God" -- pure assumption.

I would call it an educated or informed opinion,

What is the "information" that informs that "opinion"?

"Morality is whatever I subjectively make it" -- not only pure assumption, but obvious illogic.

That wording doesn't represent the meaning of what I have said.[/quote]
Yes, it does. If you realize the logical consequence of what you are saying. But perhaps you simply refuse to use logic to follow your own views through to their end, since it frightens you too much to do so. That's possible.

[Immanuel Can]

Wrong on both counts

Great that you think so, so confidently. Prove it.

You might...

Yeah, I thought so. You've got nothing.

[Sculptor]

Great that you think so, so confidently. Prove it.

You might...

Yeah, I thought so. You've got nothing.

You are, as usual, just making an arse of yourself.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/socie ... ties-list/

[Harbal]

I'm not talking about the incoherent concept you think "morality" is, that's for sure.

No, it isn't what I think morality is; it is what morality is to me, and to a good many others here, it seems.

Then you "incorporate" an idea that isn't even possibly true. It's incoherent --

The words, "true" and "coherent", are not applicable. I have simply been describing what morality means to me, and my experience of it. Whatever you have been describing, or more often avoiding describing, is not morality as I understand it. It is just rules that must be followed.

...what you point to as being morality is something I neither know nor understand.

I think you do. You know very well what it is to say to somebody (such as to me) "You're really wrong.

I know what it is to think, believe or feel something is really wrong, but my only means of determining that it is wrong is my own judgement. There is no instrument that will tell me it is wrong, or how wrong it is. There is no logical process by which I can work out that something is morally wrong, other than by comparing it against what I personally believe to be right. And all you can do is say something is wrong, but without being able to give a logical explanation of how it is a matter of objective fact that it is wrong.

morality is not what you wish to think it is.

No, it isn't; you are right about that.

The fact that someone's moral opinion differs from mine does not rob mine of meaning as far as I am concerned.

Logically, that's exactly what it does.

I'm afraid you, or your reasoning, have no influence over what does or does not mean something to me.

I am taking it to be the God of the Bible.

I can see you don't know all that much about that, either.

I only need to have read the first page of the Bible to know more than enough.

The source of human morality can be nothing other than human.

Human beings aren't "necessary" beings. There was a time when the Earth existed with no humans on it. Human beings all die. All are merely contingent beings...they need not exist, there was a time when they didn't, and there's a time when they won't. So there is no such thing as "morality." The feelings people have are even more contingent, transient and ephemeral than they themselves are; it's all smoke.

Unless you are being ironic, this pretty much agrees with my view, except that I know there is such a thing as morality. I don't know if there exists anything that could be described as morality among any other living creatures, but human morality can only exist as long as humans exist.

Yes, if the God that you believe in exist, but there is no limit to the different types of God/god one could believe in.

Sure there is. But I grant you there are a multiplicity of delusions and errors around in that regard. But so what?

So yours is just a delusion among a multiplicity of delusions. You obviously feel you are different from those other delusional folk, and are somehow special, but you don't seem any different from them to me.

That principle applies to you just as much as it applies to everyone else. Your beliefs about God do not make them true.

I agree. Though if I am wrong, I can't do myself any harm by being wrong

No, but you can do harm to others if some of your moral opinions, the ones that just happen to coincide with God's moral truth, happen to influence anyone else.

We must first have the capacity for morality

Why do we? That's the question you're not really grappling with. Why should you forego your own advantage for somebody else?

Because the potential for doing that is part of human nature.

Survival of the fittest, or survival of your species?

I suppose whatever characteristics in the individual have the most survival benefit to the species as a whole are the one most likely to be favoured by natural selection.

There's no good reason we have to obey any "morality" at all, since the great god "Evolution" has no particular opinion about what its accidental creations do, or what happens to them. Why do we owe it to bow at that "god's" altar, by being "moral"?

I would say there is more good reason to follow an emotional impulse than to follow a rule reported to have been laid down by an imaginary authority figure that I don't believe exists.

I would call it an educated or informed opinion,

What is the "information" that informs that "opinion"?

All the information I have gathered throughout my lifetime about the nature of reality, and how the world works.

That wording doesn't represent the meaning of what I have said.

Yes, it does.

I suppose you know best what I meant.

[Immanuel Can]

You might...

Yeah, I thought so. You've got nothing.

You are, as usual, just making an arse of yourself.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/socie ... ties-list/

You poor soul...that's a puff piece.

Having a woman in a leadership role doesn't make a society "matriarchal." If it did, Elizabethan and Victorian England would have been "matriarchal," and so would have been Russia during Catherine's reign. But the Fems insist that society was "patriarchal," and that the problem is "systemic" up to and beyond even the start of the Feminist movement. In fact, they think we're STILL "patriarchal." So which story do you want people to believe?

Show us the society where women were the warriors, the inventors, the builders, the hunters, the defenders and pillars, not just where a woman or two was allowed to make a decision, assuming the men would give her permission, of course.

[Immanuel Can]

No, it isn't what I think morality is; it is what morality is to me, and to a good many others here, it seems.

Then you "incorporate" an idea that isn't even possibly true. It's incoherent --

The words, "true" and "coherent", are not applicable.

They're applicable to everything, so long as it's true and applicable. If your version of morality isn't true or applicable, then exactly what virtues does it have?

...what you point to as being morality is something I neither know nor understand.

I think you do. You know very well what it is to say to somebody (such as to me) "You're really wrong.

I know what it is to think, believe or feel something is really wrong, but my only means of determining that it is wrong is my own judgement.

So if you decided it, the moon might be made of cheese?

The fact that someone's moral opinion differs from mine does not rob mine of meaning as far as I am concerned.

Logically, that's exactly what it does.

I'm afraid you, or your reasoning, have no influence over what does or does not mean something to me.

That might be true...but only at the cost of you being intransigent and irrational, of course.

I am taking it to be the God of the Bible.

I can see you don't know all that much about that, either.

I only need to have read the first page of the Bible to know more than enough.

Really, dear sir...

The source of human morality can be nothing other than human.

Human beings aren't "necessary" beings. There was a time when the Earth existed with no humans on it. Human beings all die. All are merely contingent beings...they need not exist, there was a time when they didn't, and there's a time when they won't. So there is no such thing as "morality." The feelings people have are even more contingent, transient and ephemeral than they themselves are; it's all smoke.

Unless you are being ironic, this pretty much agrees with my view,

I know. I understand your view quite clearly by now. I can repeat it back to you, as above.

...except that I know there is such a thing as morality.

Do you? How?

...you don't seem any different from them to me.

That may be because you claim to have read only one page of the Bible...though I'm suspicious that might be more than you can honestly say...

That principle applies to you just as much as it applies to everyone else. Your beliefs about God do not make them true.

I agree. Though if I am wrong, I can't do myself any harm by being wrong

No, but you can do harm to others if some of your moral opinions, the ones that just happen to coincide with God's moral truth, happen to influence anyone else.

According to your theory, I can't...I might make them happy. And even if I don't, where is it written, "Thou shalt not make others unhappy?" In your world, there are no such objective moral imperatives. So whatever I do is good...or at least as "good" as anything can be, which is really neither good nor evil.

We must first have the capacity for morality

Why do we? That's the question you're not really grappling with. Why should you forego your own advantage for somebody else?

Because the potential for doing that is part of human nature.

So is the potential for war, or for cancer. How do we know we have a duty to actualize some mysterious "capacity for morality," when we have so many contrary capacities?

Survival of the fittest, or survival of your species?

I suppose whatever characteristics in the individual have the most survival benefit to the species as a whole are the one most likely to be favoured by natural selection.

It's one or the other. Either the weak antelope is pulled down by the lions, or the other antelopes protect it, and the strong die instead...which is to the disadvantage of the species, since then the weak get to reproduce and the strong die out. So you have to choose -- is morality "do what is to Harbal's advantage," or "do what is best for humanity, even if it kills Harbal?" The two are mutually exclusive, obviously.

There's no good reason we have to obey any "morality" at all, since the great god "Evolution" has no particular opinion about what its accidental creations do, or what happens to them. Why do we owe it to bow at that "god's" altar, by being "moral"?

I would say there is more good reason to follow an emotional impulse than to follow a rule reported to have been laid down by an imaginary authority figure that I don't believe exists.

There would actually be no reason for either. That's the truth.

I would call it an educated or informed opinion,

What is the "information" that informs that "opinion"?

All the information I have gathered throughout my lifetime about the nature of reality, and how the world works.

No, specifically. What information has illuminated you to the impossibility of a God existing?

Give me a taste of all that wisdom. Perhaps I'll find it compelling to me, too...and your problem will be solved.