Ethical Discussion With Atheists on CARM

20 Nov 2010
CARM

TOPIC:

the warrant, the thing that makes it so. what puts the force in "ought?"

Unknown atheist.

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am going to assume you mean that there are moral facts which exist in nature, and they are the basis of morality? Well if these moral facts exist, then maybe they are the basis for morality. But to my knowledge the only evidence we have for them is some peoples intuitions, which I do not trust.

Meta:

Look, any time you use the term "ought" (that is what ethics is, it's how to show why something OUGHT to be done or not done) you are saying "this is what SHOULD BE."

ought = should be!

the thing that spells out a should be is a warrant. as in the phrase. "do you have a warrant?" Warrant in law means you are authorized to do something liek search a premises for something. Warrant in logic means you are authorized to draw a conclsuon from your data to your conclusion. That field that allows you to draw that conclusion si alogical piont that gives permition to think someting, in other words a good reason.

that's why I call the warrant the thing that makes it so(see above in blue). because it tells us why something should be. in so doing it sort of metaphorically gives us permission to believe that X should be.

UA:

Why is it a bad thing that our moral values reflect how we personally believe the world ought to be?

Meta:

It's not. That is not give us license to do whatever seems good at the moment. There's a broader context than just individual feeling.

UA:

How does God choose his moral values, if not by his own personal fancy?

Love, God's charactor as love forms the basis of all ethical judgement. The basic grounding that makes right and wrong is the relation of an action to the motivatoin in love.

Meta:

"fancy" implies either arbitrary or some from of trivial personal reference. God is not trivial, god is not just another guy. God is not a human being, he's not a big man in the sky. He's not just another guy with another opinion. God is the basis of all good by virtue of the fact that he is the source of all love (love in the sense of will to the good of the other).

Who else would be the authority and the judge but the all knowing creator? you are all knowing? you have your personal feelings. so do I? what if your personal feelings trample on my right? how does that make you more right than me just becuase you want something and I have it? There has to be arbitrating voice there that is not and is not me that says "this is not fair for you to kill this guy and take his things just because you have a personal feeling that you want them."

God's base of motivation is his character as the ground of being nad the source of love. Love is the background of the moral universe. That phrase means (rooted in St. Augustine btw) that love is the basic motivation behind all ethical stands and universals.

UA:

Does what either of us want have any bearing on reality?

Meta:

On the way we perceive it.



Originally Posted by HRG

"Grounding axioms" is a sufficiently vague expression, which enables its user to claim that his moral axioms are grounded, while those of his opponents aren't. In fact, what could you ground an axiom on, except another axiom ?

Meta:
It would be if you were dealing with some sap who didn't study under Frederich Carney.

On the other hand you are not willing to even try to ground axioms meaning you are left with no moral philosophy and nothing but your alleged dry wit and no means of translating your value system into action.

I on the other hand have a cogent and well developed moral philosophy and I can certainly show where I ground my axioms.

HRG:

See what I mean about a vague term, made even more vague by adding "adequately" ?

Meta:

I see so adjectives make things more veg. there's a unique take on English.[HRG is From Austria you see.]

HRG:

Could we please hear some more details about this alleged grounding process ?

Meta:

How do you warrant an argument? grounding and moral axiom is nothing more than warranting a proposition. Warrant is the connecting link between the data and the conclusion.

You say math is objective. What makes it objective? what's the different between an actually objective proposition and a less subjective one? To say you have a less subjective proposition you have to compare it to something. Less subjective than what? speaking of "objective" is veg (ironically since objectivity is supposed to make things so transparent).

Mathematical assumptions are just as random and veg as any other. Why should we work in base 10 and not base 2? or base 8? It's all the same if you know how to work it right? The process is still one of logic and it's no different then words, it's just that the certainty in math comes at an earlier point, you choose which base and then you are stuck with a set of rules. The rules warrant the proposition, because they tell you which proposition to apply. But there is still an arbitrary point, it's just further up the line so to speak. no?

Warrant, connecting link, that's all basically epistemology. I think it was Simplelife who was speaking in this thread of separating ethics form epistemology? I agree with him, that is the beginner of the big mistake in western thought.

My epistemology is based upon epistemic judgment. I say we can't have absolute knowledge of reality so we must make a judgment at some point. The extent to which a proposition is warranted, or an axiom is grounded is the extent to which we choose a set of early on, and the more basic the level the more extensive the grounding.

Go back to the TS argument again. That argent connects everything to God becuase it shows the basis of all propositions, all ought, all should, all rules, all organizing becasue essence of the organizing principle. Base the axioms on the TS.

How to do that is the big problem. But go back to Fletcher there's a given at the most fundamental level, that's where I can connected being to love. I've talked about that link before. that unities the organizing principle (ordering principle) with the value system.

voila, axioms are grounded.

that doesn't mean there aren't problems to work out. there always are. That's what makes philosophy fun, otherwise logic would be bean counting.

Now the discussion turns to a guy called "Lance." I think his views really demonstrate what's wrong with humanity in this era. The blue text is what he's dealing with that I said in a previous post.

Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
the warrant, the thing that makes it so. what puts the force in "ought?"

Look, any time you use the term "ought" (that is what ethics is, it's how to show why something OUGHT to be done or not done) you are saying "this is what SHOULD BE."

ought = should be!

the thing that spells out a should be is a warrant. as in the phrase. "do you have a warrant?" Wararnt in law means you are authroized to do something liek search a premises for something. Warrant in logic means you are authorized to draw a conclsuon from your data to your conclusion. That field that allows you to draw that conclusion si alogical piont that gives permition to think someting, in other words a good reason.

that's why I call the warrant the thing that makes it so(see abvoe in blue). because it tells us why soemthin should be. in so doing it sort of metaphorically gives us persmission to believe that X should be.


Lance:

I believe you are describing what I call a moral fact, here let me define it for you.
Just like a fact is something in reality which makes a descriptive statement true, a moral fact is something in reality which makes a prescriptive statement true.

termenology--whatever

Quote Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
It's not. That is not give us license to do whatever seems good at the moment. There's a broader context than just individual feeling.

Lance:

I understand that the legalistic terminology you were using before was just a metaphor to describe things which make prescriptive statements true; I think that you are over extending the metaphor now with talk of license. Why don’t we break away from metaphors and speak in clear and precise terms?

Meta:

All language is metaphor. However I am speaking planing. Person desire does not trump moral axioms and it doesn't make them either. Ethical values are shared values not personal feelings. Personal ethical feelings are indicative of universals, they are not warrant in themselves.

Lance

There may or may not be such a thing as a moral fact. If there are moral facts, then the corresponding prescriptive statements are true. If there are not any moral facts, then no prescriptive statements are true. You have yet to provide evidence for such a thing as a moral fact, so we are for the moment at a stalemate, as I don’t have any evidence against the existence of a moral fact.

Meta (notice "moral fact" is his term and the burden he tries to stick me with but in sort of luring me into thinking it was my assumption).

Ultimately God is, for me, the basis of all moral grounding. That's theological ethics.IN that case essence proceeds being. That's the ultimate basis for all grounding.

In talking about ethical theory which is broader than moral philosophy or theological ethics, then you have to appeal to a broader base and have agreement based upon shared values, or else either consign yourself to being ignored, or force people people do your bidding regardless of their beliefs. Oddly though my own moral philosophy frowns upon the latter so I have to find points of agreement that even atheists and theists share. Either that or don't have agreement.

Quote Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
Love, God's character as love forms the basis of all ethical judgment. The basic grounding that makes right and wrong is the relation of an action to the motivation in love.

Lance

Absolute rubbish. I believe Fat Joe says it best when he sings, “Whats luv got to do – got to do – with it?”

Meta

cute. but I suspect you have nothing to put in its place. Atheists don't like the concept of love and it makes you feel wimpy who knows. I suspect you are on some kind of hard and bitter kick but that's not important.

Nothing else makes any sense. Let's get into it and I'll prove it.

Lance

But seriously now, what has the love of a god to do with what one ought to do? Maybe this makes more sense in your head where I assume you have redefined the word ‘love’ to have something to do with morality.

(Acutally he's half right. He probably thinks of love as wanting to have sex. The Greek term translated "love" in terms of God's love in the NT--Agaope--does have to do with mortality but I didn't define it that way the Greeks did.)

There's a reason why I called it "the background of the moral universe." It's not the "up front" reason for things, it's the back reason. It's underneath all the surface stuff. That goes back to what I told Hans about the transcendental signifier. The link from organizing principle to concepts and logical conclusions, is the way in which the organizing principles creates a hierarchy of meaning. God is at the top of the hierarchy and God's character is the basis, God's nature as being itself, is the basis for love and then for ethics. the link link form love to ethics would take longer. there are more steps that's the basic idea.

God is love
God created everything
therefore, the reason for everything is love.

something like that.


Quote Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
"fancy" implies either arbitrary or some from of trivial personal reference. God is not trivial, god is not just another guy. God is not a human being, he's not a big man in the sky. He's not just another guy with another opinion. God is the basis of all good by virtue of the fact that he is the source of all love (love in the sense of will to the good of the other).


Lance

God is not trivial?

Meta:

right

Lance

That is most definitely up to debate.

Meta:

nope. Nothing could be more obvious do you not understand how logic works? why is something grounded? becasue it has a higher principle that makes it so. that's the hierarchy of reality. The thing at the top is God and that's because God is the creator of it all and the organizer. It's God's basic principles that make the hierarchy and everything that comes out of it.

Anyways there is no reason for you to assume that the personal reasoning behind why one holds a certain moral belief is trivial. Believing it is wrong to kill people because you have a deep respect for human life is in no way trivial. I think you are too quick to judge.

sure, but it's not a grounding either. It's just a personal predilection you equally have the opposite feeling. Being person is not what makes it true. look at how deeply illogical that is. What if God were a broody kid who says "I have these deep feelings too my deep feeling to send you to hell." Now well wouldn't make it right because it's a deep person feeling? If deep personal feelings are what make things right why is God's deep personal feeling not right? Then it comes down to a matter of power.

at this point most people would bring up fairness. That's not fair. o now we have somethign other than deep personal feelings. now we have a universal to deal with. right? I can follow this line of reasoning until i come to a point where I prove that he motive force behind fairness is love. the motive of justice is love and so on.

Lance:

And no God is not another man with another opinion; he is another person with another opinion.

Meta:

nope he's not. "HE" is the transcendental signifier, the thing that makes meaning. He is the authorized of all authorizing the thing that creates everything. Thus all tings exist for his purpose not yours not mine. one of the primary lies you have fed that God is not any better or more important than you. that is self idolatry it's the major sin of the age. of cousre God is more important than everything becuase god is the basis of all reality.

Lance:

God has his own personal moral law, as we all do, which is described in the bible.

Meta:

That's part of the great deception that his destructing humanity. you are fed a poison that destroys your reasonnig. Look at how totally idiomatic that idea is. It says you are just as much a god as god. but if god has person feelings then he can send you to hell you have no right to object because hey he has the feelings, that makes it right hu? why not? you want to bring something else into it like justice that means feelings aren't makes it all true.

feelings are not what makes things true. feelings tell us about reality beyond ourselves they don't' create reality in us.

Lance:

There is no more moral reason to follow God’s moral law than my own.

Meta:

That's a lie. It's the ultimate evil. don't you realize that's make Hitler Hitler?HU? that's he basic lie of all murderers and all dictators. put yourself above truth, deg rate and pull down form heaven the truth of reality the truth of all goodness. put up yourself on that level with no justification at all. You have no more reason why your feelings should be it than yud o why God's should not be it.

Lance:

Of course he is the biggest of us all, so there is reason to follow his moral law if you value certain things, like your own life.

Meta

that has nothing to do with it. might doesn't make right. God is right because he's God--the basis of reality and the transcendental signified. I said signifier but I meant signified.
(I just didn't have the energy to do the old wind up on Ground of Being, but in fact you know to say that is the "biggest of us" is not a statement one can make about the Christian God, because that's not the ground of being,it's another thing in creation. The basis of reality can't be called "the biggest thing" that would be comparing it to something and it's totally incomparable).

Lance:

I don’t know what you mean by God being the source of all love, but I have news for you; I love people and God is not involved.

Meta:
wrong! we are not capable of love on our own. the only reason we can love is because we are hooked up to God. God is the source of all love. Our ability and capacity to love is a result of being made in god's image.

Quote Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
Who else would be the authority and the judge but the all knowing creator?

you are all knowing? you have your personal feelings. so do I?

stop being ridiculous. that's just self worship it's a trip. it's a silly little trip young people try and when you are old like me you will know it was a stupid mistake. feelings are not knowledge and they are not warrants for truth. you turned off the feelings that were valid warnings you turned them off ages ago.

I have studies that show that atheists have low self esteem and leads them to hate God. that sounds to me like the self worship and self idolatry is just a reaction to poor self esteem.

what do you do when personal feelings compete? why should yours be any better than mine? Kind makes you think there has to be some universal thing that everyone can appeal to hu? Well wouldn't that mind that created it all and that knows all and can get inside your head and know your feelings better than you do be the the real all knowing one? I guarantee you you do not know my feelings.

what if your personal feelings trample on my right? how does that make you more right than me just becuase you want something and I have it? There has to be orbitrating voice there that is not and is not me that says "this is not fair for you to kill this guy and take his things just because you have a personal feeling that you want them."


Lance:

If God does exist, then I agree he has the authority to judge us. This is not because he is all knowing though, but because he is all powerful. The most powerful one is always able to bully everyone else into following his moral law.

Meta:

so you are not cable of conceiving of right apart from being a bully? Then that doesn't really recommend you as a moral philosopher. I hate to say it if you don't understand the concept of having an ethical theory that's more advanced that just "do this or I will pound your head to jelly" then perhaps your moral philosophy is not that great hu?

Lance:

If God doesn’t exist, then the next most powerful people are your government. Then it’s their law which you are judged by.

Meta:

why do you equate being powerful with being right?

Lance:

I understand though, that the argument you are using goes like this:
1) If people are the moral law makers, then they have the power to abuse it
2) people sometimes abuse their power
People can’t be the moral law makers

I think it is much easier to see the flaw in your reasoning when it’s put into a formal argument form.

Meta:

that's not really it. tha'ts maybe a part of it.

Quote Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
God's base of motivation is his character as the ground of being nad the source of love. Love is the background of the moral universe. That phrase means (rooted in St. Augustine btw) that love is the basic motivation behind all etheical stands and universals.

Lance:

Bollocks. I have moral beliefs which have nothing to do with love, and I’m sure you do to.

Meta:

see your feelings are leading you astray. they are telling to reject the bias of the good. personal feelings are not always valid and they never the basis for moral axioms.

Dialouge With An Atheist Friend Over Same Harri's Assertions about Science and Ethics

Science doing ehtics--think no evil




On my message boards a friend atheist named Qunauntum Troll brings my attention to this lecture by Sam Harris in which he tries to show that science can supposedly answer moral questions. To cut through a lot of preliminary stuff, I argue that right out of the shoot in the first few things he says Harris makes every mistake that I accuse atheists of making when they try to argue for biological ethics. Actually two people brought up the same argument. The other one was Quantum Troll. He used the U tube version of the same lecture, here's what I said to him.

Quantum Troll is a friend  and he's an atheist and one of the brightest people I know. We always have good dialogues and it's always challenging to spar with him.

Metacrock:

He (Harris) makes every single mistake in logic and promotes every fallacy one after another that I have aid reductionists do starting with the reduction (his own words!) of value to "facts." Values cannot be facts. you can't reduce a value to a fact. that's a fact. you can't do it because it's not the meaning of the word. it's not in the meaning of hte word for it be a fact. that's like saying reducing matters of taste to facts.

Before he does that the first thin he does is to reduce all of ethics to consequentialism. The first thing he says is that values are based upon harm. So he set's up the notion what makes something good, O the outcome determines good, (screw duty, screw obligation, screw rules) and then with outcome what matters is harm. So screw higher ideas. screw self sacrifice screw enduring a harm in order to keep a greater obligation. So I should ditched my parents at their fist sign of trouble.

Then he asserts that the connection between science's ability to tell us what is harmful and that plugs science in as a moral originator. But he's already made so many major fallacies before he could do that or get that to point that his own scheme is already invalid.

He himself uses the term "reduce" he says 'reduce value to facts.' So he's aware that he's just chucking the data right and left.

Morality does not reduce to outcome
values are not facts and can't be reduced to facts
Meta-ethical theory is not only teleological
lack of harm is not the only value.


Does he answer Hume's fork/ no all he does is make the blunder Hume was warning us about and assert that it doesn't matter because that's part of the data he's hidden.

he's made every blunder I've warned about before he even get's cooking.

QuantumTroll wrote:

Meta, give us all a break, will you?

Does Sam Harris ever say that science provides the absolute standard for what is good and what is bad? No.
Does he say that we can look to science in all practical questions of ethics and morality? No.

Metacrock

First, stop saying "give me a break" when I point out obvious classic mistakes. there is not an ethics professor in this world who would not say what I said up front.

that's not even an issue. it's the same as with theology. atheists pontificate about how stupid theology and they never read it. have you ever taken an ethics class? If you don't know what ethical thinking is how can you know if science can do it?

Quantum Troll

What does he do, then?

He does assume a consequentialist ethics. Harm, pain, and suffering are taken to be bad, joy and well-being are taken to be good. Regardless of your specific beliefs and philosophy regarding ethics and morality, you're probably not going to disagree very much with these assumptions. It doesn't matter where they come from, what matters is that 99.99999% of people will agree that suffering is bad and well-being is good.

Metacrock

Yea I do [disagree very much] and it's a big a deal. It's a major deal in ethical theory. what hes' doing is just a classic mistake. that's on a par with a fundie saying that evolution is just a theory becuase they've heard of scientist saying "evolutionary theory." Same level of ignorance.

Look it's circular. To show that scinece does ethical thinking you have to show how you would select values. But he start from the assumptions these values are accepted a prori. If that's the case then its' pointless to say that science can do any thing about them because they are a priori givens anyway we don't need any kind of special theorizing to understand them.

But the fact of it is that does not do anything in the realm of meta ethics (the field where we study what makes good good, bad bad?).

Quantum Troll

Then he says that science can help determine the relative goodness of complex and difficult questions, and it will likely become better at doing so in the future. In other words, science is a tool that can and should be employed in determining moral questions. Today, it is underutilized in this function because people like you refuse to admit that moral questions can (sometimes, maybe often) be framed as questions of fact.

But it can't be such a tool because he doesn't' understand the basic issues and he's every major blunder in just setting up his topic. All he really says is "screw 2000 years of ethical theory, screw Socrates and screw Western thought, let's just let scientists be experts in everything becuase science is the only form of knowledge."

how about this? religion can decide the nature of wave particle duality. now screw all that Quantum stuff let's start looking through the bible to find verses about the nature of light, Good is goodness, so I we need to ask "are waves good or are particles good?"

that's just the sort of thing he's doing.

he's just using the same three tricks that the reductionist scam always uses:

(1) lose the phenomena

in this case ethical thinking and the all specialized theorizing that has been part of an academic discipline since the middle ages is gone.

(2) remove counter evidence by circular reasoning

Usually this is done by saying "this can't be evidence of a miracle because there is no evidence of miracles" but the reason there is none is because whenever it's presented then it's rejected on the grounds that there is none, and this has gone on so long that people start believing there really is none.

In this case it's done by asserting the values he wants to put over as the basic goal of all ethical thinking, just conveniently pretending the rest of the data has never presented (deontolgoical thinking).

(3) re defining the terms

having made the counter data go away then the terms are re-defined to give the illusion that there was never anything there.


In my forth coming book I have two whole chapters where I follow philosopher Wayne Proudfoot through a whole book he wrote and show point for point how the applies this technique to make religious experience go away.

QuantumTroll 

Meta, if you really disagree with the notion that consequentialist ethics based on reducing human suffering and promoting human welfare is a common denominator for a vast majority of ethical thought, then it should be easy for you to show me some concrete examples of when your morality breaks against this rule of thumb. In other words, I'd like you to show me where we would disagree about what is ethical and what is wrong. When do you think it is okay for people to be hurt, and when is it bad for them to flourish, thrive, or be happy?


Metacrock

asking me that is really a doge. The issue is how can we do ethical thinking without using ethical thinking but filtering it through a discipline that is not about ethics? We can only do it by reducing ethical thinking to phsyical world and not thinking ethically.

To do that Harrish just asserts the basic values of utilitarianism as though they are al there is to ethics, then you are trying to justify that move by asserting there can't be anything then saying "ok well show me something if that's the case" as though there are no non-consqeuntialist philosophers. the vast majority of ethicist are non consequential. consentuqialism is taken to be dead and John Rawls is understood to be the last guy to drive the last nail in the coffin.

You should watch that ethics show on PBS. I see it on Sunday night around 6pm but you should look for it on PBS.org. It's a great show they just show a class at Harvard.

There are tons of other ethical theories. Consequential is considered old hat.

Quantum Troll

KR, I'm inclined to maybe believe you. I'm agnostic about the roots of morality. But I think there are more important questions of morality than where morality comes from.

Metacrock

think about what you are saying! don't you know how logic works? you seem to think that ethical thinking can just start from a subjective and emotive value oriented position based upon people who want to think ethically agreeing with certain kind of value as though no one ever thought about ti before. That's like doing away with the data and pretending ethical thinking doesn't exist.

Quntum Troll

Questions about how to actually live in this complicated world of ours. And those are the sorts of moral questions that science might be used for.

Metacorck

you can't begin to think about that without a meta ethical theory. How do you know avoiding pain is good? You like it does that make it ethical? Unless you have a theory of what makes a choice right or wrong then you are not doing ethics. So to say science can do ethics is really just a smoke screen and what you really mean to say is let's just eliminate ethics and pretend my value system is the only one.

Ironically what these people Rawls have proved is that the high sounding aims of utilitarianism turn out be bunk and they pollute the morality of the individual and justify murder like the contra war.

What atheists scoff at because they hate and don't want strictures on their life styles actually secure the good of people and stop pain suffering better than utilitarianism.

I can justify the contra was with Utilitarian thinking. I can't justify it with deontology given the concept of love as the primary duty.

In the contra war the contras in Nicaragua murdered, raped, tortured and lied about it in order to create a climate of fear. They murdered 80,000 innocent civilians and they did things such as cutting off little girls heads and putting them on poles. I can justify that by utilitarian standards because the net result was to destroy the Sandinistas and bring back a capitalist government and idea that capitalism is great and socialism is evil then the greatest goof for the greatest number is to destroy the socialist government and the 80,000 victims are just the less number that have to go so the greater number be happy.


It's only if you have a sophisticated sense of ethical philosophy that you can start delineating goals and set priorities that would stipulate a duty not to kill or an obligation to protect the weak or whatever.

But all of that assumes that you have some means of sorting through values so you don't just accept some scientist saying "this is the value we all except because science says our genes tell us to do this."

You can't establish a duty or an obligation without an ethical theory and you can't have an ethical theory by trying to stipulate truth according to genes. Harris wants to use outcome as the measure but that's the problem with teleological ethics. We need an atheist theory that establishes right and wrong up front so we can rule out political murder, which according to the murderer is always for the good.

Quantum Troll

The only thing I am dodging is a few hundred years of inconclusive philosophizing, and I'm only doing temporarily.

Metacrock

here it comes. O philosophy sux because you have to keep doing it. We want solid hard answers that never change and give us the "Facts" once and for all and will always beyond there 100% proved. You not going to get that. Not ever. Because science is a social construct. That's what is and always will be. As long as think in language you will never have the kind certainty about life you have a bout spore samples.

what this tells me is this is an ideological matter not a matter of ethical thinking!

The sad thing is Harris doesn't arrive at those values by science at all. He merely picks them out of popular culture and politics, and he asserts they are the ultimate in human values with no basis other this immediate political concerns.

Quantum Troll

I'm convinced that there is a common denominator in moral thinking. People might disagree about details, priorities, borderline cases, and abstract theory, but the general principle is everywhere about the same. This is all very interesting and worth discussing, but it is beside the point in this thread.

Metacrock

that proves what I'm saying, you are not even trying to show how science can do ethics, that's just show, what you really mean by that phrase is an ideological selection of values that you already approve.

Quantum Troll

The topic I brought up in this thread is that science can answer moral questions. All we need to agree on is that there is common ground for us to work with. What lies beyond this common ground is irrelevant in this thread.

Metacrock

but instead of demonstrating that all you've really demonstrated is that your ideology has pre selected values it can shove in our faces, tell us those are our primary values, claim that it discovered them scientifically without even bothering to back it up (did he even do a survey?) and then pretend like he's actually proved something.

Quantum Troll

[at this point I'm quoting from earlier but here I put it under his name because I'm quoting him but it's a change in subject from what immediacy came before]

I won't admit that this is a good example of what I was asking for, because I think rational and objective research would show that 80,000 dead civilians and countless more terrorized and destroyed families is quite an enormous amount of harm.

Metacrock

Only only only if you are pre disposed to accept it as a harm. if you don't pre select the value (which is not selected by scinece at all) then how do you prove that it is harm? Only if you pre approve the value is it harm. he gives no demonstration of how to do that.

How about someone who is really married to science? What if someone came along and said "people are not special, they are just organisms, they are no better than things under rocks, we don't get upset when aphids die form insecticide, why should be get upset when this sort of organism dies?" how could you go about proving (with science mind you) that people are more special than bugs?

can't pre seelct, can't appeal to culture, you have to demonstrate by science.

Quantum Troll

A peaceful, gradual transition would achieve the same goal without the harm. Not to mention that the goal itself (laissez-faire capitalism) is highly suspect, and should probably be revised. So there, you provided me with a perfect example of how ideological morality sucks and a "science of morals" could prevent atrocity.

Metacrock

why do we need science to say any of that?

It's only if you have a sophisticated sense of ethical philosophy that you can start dileniating goals and set priorities that would stipulate a duty not to kill or an obligation to protect the weak or whatever.

But all of that assumes that you have some means of sorting through values so you don't just accept some scientist saying "this is the value we all except because science says our genes tell us to do this."

Quantum Troll

Science can help us with morality in two ways. First off, it can help inform us about our values. Note that I'm not claiming that science can do a complete job of setting up a value system. Harris also made this disclaimer.

Metacrock

In what say? Opinion polls? How would you use science to do that and why would it be anymore "demonstrated" than just discussing our values? Moreover, how do you move from "our values" to "right and wrong?" So what if it's our values? How do you prove that our values mean anything?

 Quantum Troll

Second, and this is more important, it can help us make decisions by making evaluations of how well we live up to our standards. A lot of times, what we should do is dependent on what we can do and on the facts of the situation. If our value is to avoid hurting sentient beings, then we can use science to measure how much sentient beings actually hurt and act accordingly. If we have a moral obligation to protect the state of the planet, and we have to balance this with a moral obligation to feed the poor, and we're running out of fresh water in a lot of places, what should we do? I think science has a role in these sorts of questions.

Metacrock

I can tell you of my values just fine without scinece, how does science help us move from the relative discord-able value that means nothing more than some local yahoo thinks X, to "we should do X?"

You can't establish a duty or an obligation without an ethical theory and you can't have an ethical theory by trying to stipulate truth according to genes. Harris wants to use outcome as the measure but that's the problem with teleological ethics. We need an atheist theory that establishes right and wrong up front so we can rule out political murder, which according to the murderer is always for the good.

Quantum Troll

So, according to you, political murder is always bad? If someone had killed Hitler and Mussolini in the early 1930's, would that really have been so bad?

Metacrock

No what I said and irrelevant. The issue is how to derive an ought. i still don't see you showing me a way science does that? It looks to me like all you are doing is assuming that the way we already feel is the basis of ethics. How is that an ought?

Quantum Troll

I'm quite undecided, actually. Harris and I have not said that ethical philosophy is over, science is here to save the day, merely that science is an overlooked tool in moral philosophy.

Metacrock

I still don't see any real demonstration of it's use in ethical thinking.

Notice after all of that:

(1) He never did tell us how is can become "ought." Hume's fork the basic mistake of biolgoically based ethics.

(2) Notice how QT's position degenerated from the strident tone Harris gives in the opening to just a help meet or partner to ethical theory by the end of the thread.

(3) I think the basic reason atheists  want to say that science can take the place of ethics because it backs their ideology that science is the only form of knowledge. They use science as an er zots religion and it functions in their world view in the way that God does in mine. If they replace ethical thinking with science then that's one of the major domains that's left to non scientific thinking and scinece is that much closer to begin all there is in the world of thought. The atheist fundie needs that because for science to take the place of God it must be all  in all.