B, you say: 'Can you demonstrate (moral)absolutes exist? (no proof given that they do). to a nazi or a satanist, what you hold to be moral is not so to them. Do you not then think it is your cultural context or upbringing that gives you your moral sense?' Sounds like complete moral relativism. Are you seriously saying you think there is no ultimate standard by which we can say that gassing the Jews was not merely culturally conditioned behaviour but actually 'wrong'? If you do say that, you need to explore the implications. If not, the question of where an ultimate sense of right and wrong comes from has to be addressed. I don't think the moral relativism implicit in the evolutionary model accounts at all seriously enough for the profundity of the human sense of outrage in the face of evil eg a dictator who massacres thousands and then dies peacefully himself. Do you?
Addressing the insistent demand to prove things: God's existence, moral absolutes. I'd admit it's not easy to argue in this 'prove' way, and it seems strangely tortuous and pointless... I'll want to return to a phrase I recall from my past apologetics reading: the 'explanatory power' of a theory. Whatever area we're discussing, God's existence, the resurrection etc, which view best fits the evidence as a whole?
To further address: B's negative view of biblical morality.
J, will come back. All comments remain of course so I can return to them.
Anonymous, thanks for joining. Jimmy, where are you? Welcome to drop in. Have begun 'The God delusion'. First impressions, readable and entertaining eg OT God a 'psychotic delinquent'(!) and says some interesting things. With B and J around, can't add 'fundamentally flawed' without being asked to back that up. Afraid I've got a raft of your comments to get through first.
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10 comments:
Bruce-
"If not, the question of where an ultimate sense of right and wrong comes from has to be addressed".
If there were an ultimate sense of right and wrong, which I don't believe there is (see later), it certainly wouldn't come from God. You imply both in this and previous posts, that there is some "ultimate moral standard" in the Universe. But even God's Word does not demonstrate such a standard. Billy will give you chapter and verse, but I'll just say- rapes, massacres, killing, theft, stoning, burning, sacrifices- all at God's request. Then everything "changes" in the New Testament. What kind of ultimate moral standard is that? It's not very Ultimate if God can change it so easily.
Let me ask you this, Bruce. The New Testament does not condemn slavery, the treatment of women as second-class citizens, or the prejudice against homosexuality. In fact, it actually encourages such behaviour. Why, then, do you not behave in such a way? Clearly, you cannot be following an "Ultimate code" from your Holy book. You may say that such immoral practices were the words of men, but even Jesus did not express that homosexuals and women should be equal to everyone else. He did not call for the abolition of slavery. Why then, do you?
It seems clear, therefore, that the morality you follow is relative. So from where would this ultimate morality come?
More later.
Jonathan.
Are you seriously saying you think there is no ultimate standard by which we can say that gassing the Jews was not merely culturally conditioned behaviour but actually 'wrong'?
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Shocking I know, but why should the truth be cuddly? However, that does not mean that we should all go around killing each other. Do you think a species that does that would survive for very long? That fact alone provides a selective advantage in not going on a genocidal spree. Tell me, do you think it was morally wrong for Joshua to wipe out every man, woman and child in Jericho? That command came from the source that you claim supplies moral absolutes. Interestingly, a study was conducted on Jewish school children. They were read Joshua as it is. Another group were read the same story, but the names and places were changed. When they were asked if they though Joshua was justified, the majority said he was – the main reason given being that he was doing what god said. The other lot thought the character called General Lin had committed a gross crime against humanity. Now, if that, or the westboro Baptists does not constitute cultural influence on defining a moral compass, then what does?
“If you do say that, you need to explore the implications. If not, the question of where an ultimate sense of right and wrong comes from has to be addressed.”
See above. As I said, previously, there is no standard sense of right and wrong. To the Aztecs, human sacrifice was perfectly acceptable. To the jew, nailing a slaves ear to a door was considered good behaviour. To the Taliban, suppressing women is entirely acceptable behaviour, to the brain washed Hitler jungen, killing Jews was good- get the point?
“I don't think the moral relativism implicit in the evolutionary model accounts at all seriously enough for the profundity of the human sense of outrage in the face of evil eg a dictator who massacres thousands and then dies peacefully himself. Do you?
We discussed this last night, so you know I do. What you need to show is that there is some special quality of humans that can’t be explained. All you have here is an argument from incredulity. Do you agree that strong emotions influence our behaviour? Then, are emotions not useful and evolutionary selectable qualities that can provide survival benefits? You would feel a strong negative emotion to seeing a mouldy maggot ridden sandwich. Sight and smell may even produce a feeling of nausea. What is the survival value? Well, you wont ingest a potentially harmful meal. Ask girls if they would snog a guy with really bad breath. Ask them what emotions it induces. What is the survival value? Bag breath could indicate disease, which could indicate “bad” genes.
Addressing the insistent demand to prove things: God's existence, moral absolutes. I'd admit it's not easy to argue in this 'prove' way, and it seems strangely tortuous and pointless...
Is evidence pointless then? You claim these things come from God, you logically, the burden of proof rests with you – sorry, but that’s the way it is.
I'll want to return to a phrase I recall from my past apologetics reading: the 'explanatory power' of a theory. Whatever area we're discussing, God's existence, the resurrection etc, which view best fits the evidence as a whole?
That’s how science works too. You are saying nothing new here. Evolution best explains life’s diversity and distribution , heliocentrism best explains the solar system etc. The selfish mature of mankind is best explained in evolutionary terms.
Anonymous, thanks for joining. Jimmy, where are you?
Maybe Anonymous is Jimmy.
The God delusion'. First impressions, readable and entertaining eg OT God a 'psychotic delinquent'(!) and says some interesting things.
Remember, if you don’t become an Atheist, then it is all your own fault. You are obviously not reading in the correct spirit, or you have the wrong motivation for seeking Richard’s enlightenment (or is that Christianity I’m thinking of)
:-)
Billy
Thought I'd try reading blog comments for relaxing post-lunch reading. Think I'll go back to The Times. Or even TGD - I can't deny RD's got a sense of humour.
That's not to dismiss your points BTW.
Bruce-
re your question about ultimate standards. I don't believe that there are any. All morals are relative, based on culture, your family environment, and to a limited extent on how your brain is wired (ie a sociopath may be raised in a moral environment but his brain structure will prevent him from taking such things in).
Bruce, let me ask you this. If you had been raised from an early age to believe that homosexuality was disgusting and that gays should be beaten, if all your friends and family believed that, if religious teaching told you the same, isn't it more likely than not that you would think that way? Rightly or wrongly, that is the way you would think. To you, that would be normal and proper.
We are influenced heavily by our instincts, emotions, and others around us. As Billy has said, there are sound evolutionary reasons for all of this. But where do you think this ultimate moral standard comes from? Are you suggesting that all these cultures that behaved in ways that you do not agree with knew on some level that what they were doing was wrong? Of course not. There would obviously be variance within a population, but on the whole they would believe they are right.
Furthermore, if there is an ultimate moral standard, why would it come from your God? You have yet to explain why the moral standards of the Christian God is so superior to that of other faiths, especially taking into consideration what I mentioned in my first comment.
However, I would settle for you telling us the basis on which you think that human morality is excessive to what evolution would produce. So far, they have been more arguments from incredulity than anything else. Secondly, if your God is the absolute standard, why not treat women as second-class citizens? See my first comment.
Lastly, look forward to your answer to my parallel universe question.
Jonathan.
I found this little questionaire about morality and ethics. Give it a go, then look at the results. Not much evidence of agreed universal laws http://faculty.heinz.cmu.edu/axa/index.php
Billy
PS. Sorry. Forgot I was completely anonymous first time round.
Paul
PPS. Maybe I should have kept it that way. :)
Hi Paul,
That was an interesting post
I believe, as you do, in some absolute standards of morality. Do you believe that the Nazis were not evil? On what grounds. And you've yet to explain how evolution provides a sence of right and wrnog?
I don’t actually believe in any moral absolutes as such – there has probably been some society at some time who have broken some aspect of our moral code and not thought they were being ommoral. Ritual human sacrifices were once commonplace for example. If you think homosexuality is wrong, then you will have a problem with the ancient greeks, if you think polygamy is wrong, then you may have a problem with pre Han Dynasty China, if you consider slavery to be wrong, then you may have a problem with Old Testament jews. I don’t believe in evil as such, and in a society of Nazi, Hitler was not “evil”. His actions do disgust me, but would they if I had been brought up in the Hitler youth? If you were brought up in a Taliban like culture, you may look on western women as whores for not covering up. I definitely believe that morality is relative, and it changes over time in a society: we no longer (in Britain) send children down mines, keep slaves, or wonder if black people are truly human for example.
The advantage of a sense of right and wrong is that it allows you to conform to the “normal” standards of society. If you couldn’t detect that stealing was bad, you would get a reputation and no one would trust you. This would be particularly bad for you in a small hunter gatherer society, where your survival chances are enhanced through interacting with those around you.
I do not believe that eveything can be neatly categorised into "right and wrong" i.e. stem cell research, capital punishment.
I agree, and it is interesting that we see degrees of right and wrong. From an absolutists point of view, it should either be right or wrong - full stop.
That is what ethics is - the application of universally held moral principles (it is wrong to take life without reason, it is wrong lie without sufficient cause, it is wrong to take what is not yours, it is wrong to have sex with someone against their will, etc) to specific situations which can become complex.
Yes, but not every one agrees on whether these are ethical or not. I imagine everyone in this discussion would be of the same opinion here, but what about a Mongolian herdsman or Polynesian cannibal?
I suspect the onus is on you, having claimed chimps are moral beings to provide evidence for that! (Allowing for the fact that motivation not action per se is the essense of moral behavior. I think it may be a while before we can confidently say what motivates chimps to do what they do...)
I never (I hope) said that chimps were moral in terms of thought. I was just pointing out they display behavioral traits that would be considered moral acts. One day we may know a chimps mind, but they certainly hold grudges an remember unfair treatment. They also remember their allies. This forms the basis for a lot of human-human interaction: “he never buys a round, so I’m not buying him one” or “he makes me feel happy, I’m going to cook him a meal”.
I believe morality is a human quality because we are the only species where we can interrogate motives for action. We also have laws, courts, "rights" and conscience. Feel free to let me know of another species with these charactersitics. Until then I'll stick with the evidence being overwhelmingly that humans are the only species with a morality. ;)
Depending on how we define morality, it may be possible that we are the only truly moral beings, but that does not mean god is the provide of moral standards (a few distasteful standards have already been mentioned – eg killing homosexuals). It would just make us unique – much in the same way the Hoatzin is unique amongst birds for having claws – or indeed every species is unique in its own way.
Animals are actually quite good at reading the motives of others. A stag can tell if another one wants to challenge him for example. A grouse that pretends to have a broken wing to lead a predator away from its nest is making a prediction about the intention of a potential predator. It can even learn to modify its behaviour to fine tune whether it should act or not. In much the same way, we learn how to trust or distrust others based on experience. You don’t even need to be aware of why you trust, but it becomes learned. This is called “adopting the intentional stance”.
I've made no arguments toward God being the source of morality. There's no point if don't accept there's such a thing as morality.
I believe in “morality”, but it is a relative thing that is fluid.
I don't think you are being cynical at all to suggest that there are too many people who are moral in the wrong way. I completely agree with you. The church likes, and has done great evil in, saying those in it are "good people" and everyone outside it are "bad people". This is religion of the worst kind - the kind Jesus told the Pharisees they would go to hell for.
Unfortunately all too often the bible teaches that you should behave or else (eg Deut 28). I think this shows that people will do what they want if left to their own devices. It is interesting that this chapter does not say be good for the sake of being good.
There aren't good people and bad people. We're all inherently bad (as evidenced everyday on the news). I like to think of it as the law of moral entropy - left to one's own devices it always takes more effort to do what is right.
Yes, and this selfishness is the raw material of evolution. It is probably also the product of evolution.
Cheers
Billy
PS, this blog is becoming messy, so if I miss a comment from you, just let me know on what ever thread I am currently on.
Thinking about "evidence for moral absolutes". What kind of evidence
would one be looking for?
One argument is in ourselves, that we do tend to believe in them, and act on that basis. Sometimes we even seem to observe goodness in others - is this "evidence"?
You might reply that we are all wrong in such beliefs, in which case it would be logical to delete the language from our vocabularies and replace it by purely pragmatic terms.
But values provide goals, and so
it might be difficult to define what "pragmatism" really means.
Do what you can get away with? well, lots of people do live like that of course. Are they living by "private values" or is this simply a polite word for desires?
Have you ever read "Crime and Punishment"? It is a -profoundly- anti-intellectual novel and very relevant to this discussion. Another interesting tale is the short story "The country of the blind" by H G Wells.
Hi Peter,
I've not read either.
If we disagree on certain moral values, that would argue against them being absolute. As previously mentioned, you will find examples of cultures that have considered just about everything moral at some time.
Even Christians live by "do what you can get away with", and some non christians largely dont, so why should morality come from your god?
Billy
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