If I were to wager a million dollars (which I don't actually have) on a single coin toss with someone
who actually had a million dollars, they might rightly ask to see proof that I had the money. In the
same vein, if I am to seriously consider creationism/and or intelligent design I must first ask one
who believes in them to prove that the creator/designer exists. So...can any of you believers prove
god exists?
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Originally posted by Lord Shark"After Virtue" is a classic, and probably the best contemporary treatment of the cultural contingency of many of the virtues. But even MacIntyre thinks that the possession of some core virtues are necessary to master the skills necessary to procure the internal benefits of any social practice. Courage, for instance, and justice and honesty. Some other works that are also required reading on the topic of virtue ethics are:
After Virtue is well worth a read I think.
Philippa Foot "Natural Goodness", Rosalind Hursthouse "On Virtue Ethics", and the collected articles of Julia Annas, all of whom advocate a neo-Aristotelian form of virtue ethics grounded in an account of Eudaimonia. Actually, the notion of Eudaimonia here, as in Aristotle, provides a unifying account of the virtues but does not play any explanatorily prior role. For Aristotle, as for these authors, Eudaimonia is by definition characterized in part by the possession of the virtues; being virtuous is simply part of what it means for one's life to be going well.
Michael Slote "Morals from Motives", which is an attempt to provide an agent-based virtue ethics that dispenses with any notion of Eudaimonia.
Christine Swanton "Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach", which is an attempt to ground moral considerations in an explanatorily fundamental account of appropriate modes of moral responsiveness, of which there are many. Very good, very technical, and indebted throughout to Nietzsche.
And everyone interested in topics even tangentially related to ethical theory should read Bernard Williams' "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy".
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Originally posted by Lord SharkSure you can derive an 'ought' from an 'is':
Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]I presume my view on this is actually not the same as that as typical/most atheists for I don’t think there is such thing as “moral” and thus I think all “morality”, at least in the sense of it being beliefs in what is “moral”, is a kind of superstition and hence totally irrational.
I think many atheist abbit hole of meta-ethics for a while, which might be beyond the scope of this thread.[/b]
1) Bennett believes everyone ought to admit it is possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
2) Every belief Bennett holds is true.
3) Hence, everyone ought to admit it is possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
But, silly counterexamples aside, the worry here is about deriving propositions with normative content from purely descriptive premises. Here are two questions about this worry: First, is it possible to derive any propositions from any premises without tacitly assuming some normative propositions as background conditions (e.g., that these premises license, warrant or justify these conclusions)? Second, and more pressingly, why should anybody believe that it is a necessary condition for a moral claim to be justified (let alone true) that it be derivable from purely descriptive premises, even if supplemented with normative epistemic background assumptions? The project of moral inquiry begins with our deepest concerns and firmest judgments regarding the good, the right, the excellent and the beautiful. Moral theories attempt to systematize and unify these judgments in perspicuous ways, while paying due attention to the complexity and variety of moral and ethical phenomena, all with an eye towards providing us with guidance concerning how to discern and deliberate, live and act. Moral inquiry does not begin with an attempt to step completely outside our evaluative frameworks; to take up the "view from nowhere", and then to try to justify our evaluative framework based solely upon those considerations that are, say, open to public view or scientifically accessible. The claim that moral inquiry has to take the form of inference from a standpoint both deaf and mute with regard to our evaluative intuitions is one that itself stands in need of justification.
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Originally posted by bbarrI like your is/ought counter example. 🙂
Sure you can derive an 'ought' from an 'is':
1) Bennett believes everyone ought to admit it is possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
2) Every belief Bennett holds is true.
3) Hence, everyone ought to admit it is possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
But, silly counterexamples aside, the worry here is about deriving propositions with norm ...[text shortened]... d to our evaluative intuitions is one that itself stands in need of justification.
The popular formulations of is/ought are indefensible. Here is one such version:
I/O' No valid argument has a conclusion that is a moral claim and premises that form a consistent set of nonmoral claims.
The above falls to your example and many others, for example let m be a moral claim and n be a contingent non-moral claim, then the valid argument from m v n and ¬n to m is a counter example to I/O'.
I/O' can be tweaked in order to get around these objections of course.
On your substantive points though, I agree.
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Originally posted by bbarr…why should anybody believe that it is a necessary condition for a moral claim to be justified (let alone true)
Sure you can derive an 'ought' from an 'is':
1) Bennett believes everyone ought to admit it is possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
2) Every belief Bennett holds is true.
3) Hence, everyone ought to admit it is possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
But, silly counterexamples aside, the worry here is about deriving propositions with norm d to our evaluative intuitions is one that itself stands in need of justification.
….
I am not sure if I misunderstand you but isn’t a “moral claim” a claim that a ‘moral’ proposition in the general form “X is moral/immoral” is correct i.e. true?
If so, then, just like all propositions that are claimed to be true, not only they are supposed to be either ‘true’ or ‘false‘ (according to the claimant) but an assertion that a particular one is either ‘true’ or ‘false‘ would require some sort of ‘justification’?
…Moral inquiry does NOT begin with an attempt to step completely outside our evaluative frameworks; to take up the "view from nowhere", and then to try to justify our evaluative framework based solely upon those considerations that are, say, open to public view or scientifically accessible.
...(my emphasis)
I would agree that is generally true in the sense that, when people think they form ‘moral’ beliefs, they do not use true logic to form those ‘moral’ beliefs and thus those ‘moral’ beliefs are not ‘justified’.
-I am curious; when you speak of the “evaluative framework” in the above comment, exactly what does this “evaluative framework” consist of that people used to make a judgement of whether or not a particular ‘moral’ proposition is correct?
-I am not even sure if such an “evaluative framework” exists for ‘morality‘!
Can you give me a particular example of how this “evaluative framework” would be used to, say, form the belief that “murder is morally wrong”?
…The claim that moral inquiry has to take the form of inference from a standpoint both deaf and mute with regard to our evaluative INTUITIONS is one that itself stands in need of justification.
….(my emphasis)
I fail to see why the idea that we need to base our beliefs on logic/evidence rather than purely on our “ intuitions” requires “justification”! -how often has “intuition” been proven wrong? -answer, very often (an example: peoples intuition told many there is no absolute speed limit. Then along came Einstein&hellip😉. It is obviously better to rely on reason and evidence than mere ‘intuition’ to form beliefs (regardless of whether they are ‘moral’ beliefs) and I guess history would generally confirm this.
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Originally posted by Lord SharkIn my post above I said:
I like your is/ought counter example. 🙂
The popular formulations of is/ought are indefensible. Here is one such version:
I/O' No valid argument has a conclusion that is a moral claim and premises that form a consistent set of nonmoral claims.
The above falls to your example and many others, for example let m be a moral claim and n be a contingen ...[text shortened]... rder to get around these objections of course.
On your substantive points though, I agree.
"...for example let m be a moral claim and n be a contingent non-moral claim, then the valid argument from m v n and ¬n to m is a counter example to I/O'."
It could of course be replied that this is only a counter example to I/O' if m v n is a non moral claim and I haven't established that a disjunction of a moral claim and a non moral claim is itself a non moral claim.
But I could in turn reply that either m v n is a moral claim or it is a non moral claim (by the excluded middle). As we have seen, if it is a non moral claim then the above argument holds and is a counter example to I/O'.
But what if m v n is a moral claim? In that case, the valid argument from n to m v n is also a counter argument to I/O'
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Originally posted by Andrew HamiltonI didn't say that moral claims don't have to be justified (please note the comma at the end of the sentence of mine you've bolded). I said the claim that moral claims must be justified solely be reference to purely descriptive premises is itself a claim in need of justification. So, what is the argument for this claim? I've given some reasons above for thinking that even those conclusions inferred from putatively exclusively descriptive premises tacitly rely on normative assumptions. In particular, they all assume some epistemic norms are true; norms that relate to the justificatory credentials of certain forms of inference. But these epistemic norms cannot themselves be justified without circularity. Hume made this infamously clear with his comments on induction, but the same problem holds with deduction as well as reliance on introspection, memory and perception. These points are common knowledge in the philosophical literature. But if circularity is the price to pay for attempts to justify our beliefs generally, then it is no strike against moral beliefs that any attempt to justify them requires recourse to some normative premise or other. Unless, that is, you are a skeptic about knowledge generally, in which case I invite you to provide an argument for the conclusion that skepticism is an epistemically justified position. In any case, the assumption of a normative premise in the pursuit of the justification of moral premises is not arbitrary, as long as you have good reasons for the premise you choose. I suppose the best we can do is choose premises of which we are antecedently most confident, and take as a working hypothesis that our deepest, most persistent concerns; those concerns that we take to be of necessity instrumental to, or perhaps constitutive of, a life we take to be worth living actually do provide us with the 'shoulds' and 'oughts' and 'musts' that characterize normative discourse.
[b]…why should anybody believe that it is a necessary condition for a moral claim to be justified (let alone true)
….
I am not sure if I misunderstand you but isn’t a “moral claim” a claim that a ‘moral’ proposition in the general form “X is moral/immoral” is correct i.e. true?
If so, then, just like all propositions that are claimed to be t ardless of whether they are ‘moral’ beliefs) and I guess history would generally confirm this.[/b]
I have no idea what 'true logic' is. I have only taught courses on first-order logic, second-order logic and modal logic. None of the indices for the textbooks I've used mention 'true logic'. But, in any case, people use logically valid inferences all the time in forming their moral beliefs. For instance, today one of my students inferred from the general proposition 'Nobody should hurt others for solely for pleasure' to the particular conclusion 'I should not hurt others solely for pleasure'. This is just an application of the Universal Elimination rule in first-order logic.
Yes, intuitions can be incorrect, and it would be problematic if intuitions could not be corrected by experience and reason within the domain of moral inquiry. But they can and are often corrected. We may think certain schemes of distribution of primary goods are just, until we see the brutal effects of poverty. We may think there is nothing wrong with animal experimentation, until we are confronted with the undeniable terror and suffering of sentient creatures this engenders. In any case, scientific inquiry also relies on intuition (e.g., the intuition that the world is governed by physical laws, is regular, etc.). It is not the use of intuitions that is problematic, but rather the use of intuitions that cannot be assessed and corrected. When scientists correct their intuitions, they do so only in the context of holding fast, or taking as given working hypotheses, that other sets of intuitions are correct. It is against the backdrop of these ancillary assumptions and their relations (what may be called a 'descriptive framework'😉 that the project of scientific inquiry proceeds, and the process is holistic. The same is true of moral inquiry. An evaluative framework is constituted by the set of evaluative judgments one endorses and the inferential and justificatory relations that obtain between these judgments.
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Originally posted by Antonius BlockThe coin toss analogy is irrelevant. The answer is obvious, not a single person can prove beyond doubt that God exists. So, if that's your stance, i.e. you aren't going to believe unless someone proves it first--well that's between you and God. God will either reveal Himself to you, or He won't.
If I were to wager a million dollars (which I don't actually have) on a single coin toss with someone
who actually had a million dollars, they might rightly ask to see proof that I had the money. In the
same vein, if I am to seriously consider creationism/and or intelligent design I must first ask one
who believes in them to prove that the creator/designer exists. So...can any of you believers prove
god exists?
In my case, God didn't reveal His existence to me beyond reasonable doubt, until after I first had faith. Both ironic and by design, for sure. But my experience definitely wasn't an Earth-shattering revelation. About a thousand years ago, Christians understood very well that belief and faith comes first... then the revelations and true understanding takes place. The phrase "Credo ut Intelligum" was popular early in the 12th century. Belief first, then comes understanding.
Originally posted by daniel58You come again conducting a false generalization, as if I told you that the Human is able to see Everything that is non-material. But I clearly told you that the Human is Also able to see non-material “things”, and I offered you the example with the dreams -and you are indeed aware of the fact that we can see dreams, which they are non-material;
No not case closed you can't see gravity.
Well, for the time being I decided to conclude that you merely understood me not in full, so I ‘ll make one more try: I am sure that you have seen a rainbow. Does this means that the rainbow you saw could drive you to Valhalla, or that you could touch it, or that you could reach it, or that you could walk on it, or that you could cut a piece out of it and take it back home to show it to your friends? Is a rainbow material, or is it a result of a specific phenomenon that causes to the Human the impression that it is a colourfully painted material object?
Finally, let’s talk a bit about gravity now. Gravity is the result of an interaction, and it’s merely the footprint of the mass. Gravity has visible footprints too, and this is the reason why Newton found out more about this phenomenon.
Well, we do are able to see gravity under specific circumstances -and not only by means of monitoring an apple falling down to the ground from an apple tree. We can see gravity easily by means of monitoring the gravity waves over a deck of stratocumulus clouds. Also, our technology enables us to monitor the atmospheric gravity waves on the surface of the ocean during sunglint (sunglint occurs when the sun reflects off the surface of the ocean at the same angle that is used by a satellite sensor that monitors the surface of the ocean).
Case closed
😵