How can it be the same?

Originally posted by dottewell
No. I don't need to. Please answer my questions, as I have tried to answer yours.

Now that I have had a go at answering your question , could you possibly have a look at the Wheel of Morality post or at least explain why you feel you don't need to.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]Moral facts are based on God's character and existence

So, provided God exists, moral facts are determined by whatever it may be that constitutes God's character? Then moral facts are arbitrary.

God is made of love , or more accurately IS love

God is identical to love? Who knew I was a theist?[/b]

True, in theory moral facts could be arbitary if they were based on decisions made by God . If God can change overnight into something else and not be made of love but be made of blancmange instead then blancmange would become the morals facts. However, they would still be FACTS and not open to debate , perception or opinion and would exist outside of and independent from human conceptualization. They would exist in the world of real things and not in the world of human thought or brain processes.

At the moment all that dotty, barr and yourself seem able to say is that moral facts exist because they have certain effects on human pleasure and pain and there is overwhelming human agreement on this concept , but it's still not the same as saying they exist independent of human thought. As I have said , it's not the same....

Originally posted by knightmeister
Now that I have had a go at answering your question , could you possibly have a look at the Wheel of Morality post or at least explain why you feel you don't need to.

Because it's trite, and because we are discussing the same issue here in a different way. My simple answer to the first bit would be: the aliens don't understand the concept of right and wrong. It seems they lack the ability even a child has; to learn the difference. So what?

Could you answer my further questions now, rather than telling me what you think I am saying?

Originally posted by knightmeister
...all that dotty, barr and yourself seem able to say is that moral facts exist because they have certain effects on human pleasure and pain and there is overwhelming human agreement on this concept, but it's still not the same as saying they exist independent of human thought...

I certainly never mentioned pleasure and pain. Neither did I mention "overwhelming human agreement".

Originally posted by knightmeister
If God can change overnight into something else and not be made of love but be made of blancmange instead then blancmange would become the morals facts.

That is utterly meaningless.

Originally posted by dottewell
The "beautyometer" question is nonsensical and unanswerable. That was my point. It is based on a misunderstanding of the kind of property beauty is.

To claim God's love has a measurable physical reality is simply bizarre. What possible reason could you have for believing this to be the case? What would it look like?

I don't separate reality and langu ...[text shortened]... flecting, by the way. There is just a very fundamental difference of approach.

The problem here is that we seem to have fundamentally different views about what reality is. Let me explain my point by a true story. When I did an Art class years ago I was drawing a life figure and had just drawn her arm when my art teacher looked over my shoulder and asked me...."You see that line you have drawn to describe her shoulder...where is it?" " It's just there" I said , incredulously . "Where " he said "..all I see is a point where the blue of the background stops and the pink of her arm starts ..but I see no such line" I looked hard and he was right , there obviously was no such line , just two tonal ranges meeting.What I had drawn was a representation of reality..but not the reality itself. I re-drew it took out the line and was pleased with myself for making a good stab at placing two lines of shading against each other , but then I realised that however accurately I drew my drawing would still only ever be marks of graphite on a piece of paper.Of course the line I drew was there and was a thing (ie her arm) , but it would be a leap of faith to say that it actually existed beyond that piece of paper.

There are infact a whole range of things that are either closer or further from reality. A map of the world from 15th C is not as accurate as a modern map , but that doesn't make it more 'real'. Neither is a mile 'real' but the landmass it measures is real. The electrical impulses that occur in the organic structure of a brain when a man thinks about a mile belong to a different reality than the concept of a mile.

I accept that to you moral facts are facts to you , but do you also accept that they are not things or actual facts in the way that I use the word fact.

So why is this important? Only when there is disagreement about moral facts and one person says that their 'facts' are more 'factual' than someone else's 'facts'. In a case like this we then push forward our perception of the 'facts' as 'actual' things and behave to all intents and purposes as if they are real when we have already accepted that they are not actually real.

Christianity has in essence a fundamentally 'arrogant' position on this. It says "no! stop disputing these 'facts' and refer to the actual real FACT that exists in reality. It is arrogant about this FACT but at least it is honest and consistent about it.






You say that a mile is a thing but you don not say what kind of thing a mile is.

Originally posted by dottewell
To claim God's love has a measurable physical reality is simply bizarre. What possible reason could you have for believing this to be the case? What would it look like?

This is curious. Had you not realised that this was the Christian position? How do you think God is going to go about bringing justice to the world and holding everyone to account morally unless the love on which these moral facts are based actually exists. Didn't you understand that when Christians say that the universe will melt away to reveal God's reality that they actually meant it and it is this that guarantees moral facts. Any Christian who tells you that they do not believe God's love to be an actual power (like electricity is a power) is being incongruent about their theology. How do you think Jesus was supposed to heal the sick unless by the power of God's love? Did you really think that Christians thought God's love to be just a pretty idea , or a neat concept? As to what it looks like , from all accounts like blinding light. I've got an idea what it feels like though. And I agree...it's shocking and bizarre..and a frightening concept..so please understand why I feel I need to challenge you when you talk about moral facts being a property of 'real' things. When you talk of morality being THAT real it feels as if you have hitched a ride on my bus without buying a ticket.

Originally posted by knightmeister
The problem here is that we seem to have fundamentally different views about what reality is. Let me explain my point by a true story. When I did an Art class years ago I was drawing a life figure and had just drawn her arm when my art teacher looked over my shoulder and asked me...."You see that line you have drawn to describe her shoulder...where is ...[text shortened]... mile is a thing but you don not say what kind of thing a mile is.

A picture or drawing can be more or less accurate, but not more or less "real". A 15th Century map and a modern map are equally real.

I don't accept, or even understand, "there are a whole range of things that are either closer or further from reality". If you mean that are more or less accurate, then that is obviously true. And if you are drawing an analogy, I guess people can be said to act more or less morally. But the fact remains, moral truths cannot be shown or measured in quite the same way as a human body or a combination of fields/roads/etc.

There is no analogy with the reality of miles. Again, all you are showing, if anything, is that a mile is a different KIND OF THING than e.g. a rock or a television, not that it does not exist.

The world does not divide neatly into physical objects and brain states. There are more things than that.

We do manage to have moral arguments, even across cultures. Often one person will back down when they see the other is right. To me the most dangerous thing you can do is to bring God into that equasion; when someone says "I am right because that is what God says", the argument ends. That is highly dangerous.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If God can change overnight into something else and not be made of love but be made of blancmange instead then blancmange would become the morals facts. However, they would still be FACTS and not open to debate , perception or opinion and would exist outside of and independent from human conceptualization.

Then it's really quite simple: your concept of 'moral facts' is arbitrary and stupid, and there's not a single good reason why I should even entertain it further.

Originally posted by knightmeister
At the moment all that dotty, barr and yourself seem able to say is that moral facts exist because they have certain effects on human pleasure and pain and there is overwhelming human agreement on this concept

I've read through the posts of bbarr and dotty, and this is a dreadfully incompetent summary of what they are saying.

Originally posted by dottewell
To me the most dangerous thing you can do is to bring God into that equasion; when someone says "I am right because that is what God says", the argument ends. That is highly dangerous.

Especially when you consider that no two individuals will have the same concept of what is "right" according to God.

Despite what Knight would have us believe, religious morality (Christian or otherwise) is anything but consistent. Even assuming there is a set of ultimate truths concerning morality, and further entertaining these facts are presented by the Bible itself, no two people will read and interpret that book in the same way. Consistency is thrown out the window on page 1.

-JC

Originally posted by knightmeister
There's nothing to say that they can't undergird an ethical theory. But it would still not be the same. The fact is that when human beings behave with compassion and honesty they do sometimes flourish (although in Gandhi and M Luther King's it killed them by putting them in the firing line). Some cultures in the past have flourished via brutality and common sense...it just is..don't ask me why..it's just self evident...'

There's nothing to say that they can't undergird an ethical theory. But it would still not be the same. The fact is that when human beings behave with compassion and honesty they do sometimes flourish (although in Gandhi and M Luther King's it killed them by putting them in the firing line). Some cultures in the past have flourished via brutality and dominion over others (eg Roman Empire). If we make a 'conception of human flourishing' our guideline for moral facts then we can easily get confused.

I don’t think that being fully virtuous is sufficient for living a flourishing human life, and it’s probably not necessary either (though it will be necessary for the vast range of human beings; human beings like you and me. Some human beings may have such bizarre psychologies that they don’t require things like nourishing interpersonal relationships, or meaningful work, or help from others, or… in order to flourish). I think that being fully virtuous is far and away the most reliable way to lead a flourishing human life, and this is not an accident. The virtues suit us, because of our deeply social nature. Surely this is one reason why we raise our children to have the virtues. Interestingly, we do this even in cases where the world seems to preclude the flourishing of the virtuous (e.g., during war, occupation, etc.) Of course, under those circumstances we tend to teach a more narrow or partial version of the virtues, but we teach them nonetheless. Anyway, I’m not particularly worried about particular cases where some virtuous person failed to flourish, or some vicious person seemed to flourish. I would be worried if you could identify a definite pattern in human life that cut across social contexts wherein the virtuous failed to flourish and the vicious seemed to flourish. But, the most you can do is identify certain times or societies where the virtuous were punished or killed and the vicious were rewarded. I think it’s better to say that in those sorts of environments, human flourishing is precluded.

So, there’s no guarantee that if you cultivate all the virtuous character traits you’ll lead a flourishing life. You may lose your loved ones, your health, your life through no fault of your own. Such are the vicissitudes of the human life. And there’s no guarantee that the cruel and ruthless won’t lead lives they seem to be enjoying (though I hesitate to call them flourishing, because my conception of flourishing is an evaluative one, and it is informed by my beliefs about human nature), marked by financial success, friendships (though I am skeptical here), and leisure. But what does this show about the ethical theory I’m advocating? Nothing, really. Considerations of this sort show merely that life is sometimes tragic, and often unfair.

In addition it would be a conception (ie subjective) and not a fact and it would depend on what you meant by 'flourishing' which is again relative and opinion.

No, whether somebody is flourishing is an objective matter. Of course, part of the specification of the objective conditions necessary for flourishing will refer to the person’s subjective states (whether they are content, or angst-ridden; whether they take joy in what they do, or despise what they take themselves to be forced to do; whether they are free to set and pursue their own ends, or trapped by forces outside their control).

Of course it is my concept of flourishing that is in play here. So what? When I talk about chairs it is my concept of chairs that I use. That doesn’t mean that it is a subjective matter what chairs are or whether there are any.

It is your concept of God that you use when you talk about God. It is your concept of God’s will that you use when you talk about how we ought to act. Now I could claim, with as much justification as you, that since your ethical theory relies upon your own concept of God, your ethical theory is relativistic. You would rightly object, claiming that your concept refers to something in the world the nature of which is independent of human beliefs about it. I claim the same thing about flourishing. People can flourish and not know it (because they lack the concept, for instance). People can mistakenly believe that they are flourishing (I see this every time I go to the pub).

Now you will probably ask me to define 'flourishing'. My response is simple: If you can successfully define ‘table’ for me, I’ll attempt to define ‘flourishing’ for you. What you’ll find is that every potential definition you’ll give me for ‘table’ will have counterexamples. This is because concepts, by and large, aren’t definitions (stipulative concepts are the exception, as when you stipulate “Lo, let X refer only to Y&rdquo😉. Rather, concepts evidence prototypical structure. You will be able to tell me, more or less, what conditions things should have in order to properly be called a ‘table’. There will be borderline cases (are crates tables if they are used as tables?) You can tell me, more or less, what the content of God’s will is. There will be borderline cases, as I’m sure you’re aware, because you don’t have an algorithm or decision procedure for determining what you ought to do. I can tell you, more or less, what conditions a life should have in order to properly be called ‘flourishing’. I’ve done this a bit already. There will be borderline cases, as most of our lives can, at one point or another, attest.

The facts of human nature are many and varied and human beings behave in many different ways according to differring moral codes , although I would agree that there is broad agreement on some basic moral principles (eg love your neighbour). However , phenomenologically all we can say is that humans sometimes live according to these codes and sometimes don't. If we based moral facts on what humans actually did then we would have a pretty shabby set of facts (I don't know if you have noticed but it's not exactly paradise on earth right now).

This is irrelevant. I’m not making any claims about how people act, and I’m certainly not claiming that how people ought to act is determined by how, in fact, they act. Rather, I’m making claims about what sort of character traits people ought to cultivate, and what sorts of lives they ought to lead given their nature as humans. Again, do you know what the term ‘phenomenological’ means? You seem to be using it as a synonym for ‘empirical’, but that is to use the term incorrectly.

You can say that humans need nourishing relationships but to infere from this that some moral fact is right or wrong is to go beyond the facts themselves. It would be like saying animals need water therefore animals that do not seek water are morally in the wrong somehow.

You are deeply confused here. Moral facts are facts. Facts are neither right nor wrong. I can infer from the fact that humans need nourishing relationships that they ought to cultivate the character traits necessary for having those relationships. Among these sorts of character traits are things like compassion, honesty, generosity, and so on. It is good for humans to have these traits because they are the most reliable means to leading a flourishing human life, and it is in everyone’s best interest to lead a flourishing human life. I’m not particularly concerned with the moral evaluation of acts. You are, because you think that morality takes the form of a law (given by God) that constrains the our prudential interests. This is one reason why I find natural law theories better, as theistic ethical theories, than the divine command theories that evangelicals normally advocate (not to mention the Euthyphro problem). I think the primary moral questions are “how ought I live?” and “what sort of person should I be?”, not “how ought I act now?”. But I do have this to say about the moral evaluation of acts: An act is right if and only if it is what the virtuous person would do under the circumstances in question. The virtuous person is the one who possesses the full complement of the virtues. The virtues are those character traits that reliably conduce to human flourishing.

If anything, a virtue based account is phenomenologically superior to your rule-based account. Normally, in moral experience and moral deliberations we don’t infer that some act is wrong because it violates a principle or run’s contrary to what we take God’s will to be. Rather, we experience an act as cruel, or callous, or immodest, or whatever. Acts strike us as being vicious, under one of these descriptions. Other acts strike us as courageous, or noble, or generous. We can make these sorts of determinations (which are more like acts of perception than inference), precisely because we have, to some degree, the character traits in question.

O.K., that’s enough for now. I’m going to go play in the sun for awhile. It’s Seattle, so I have to take what I can get on that front. I’ll respond to the rest of your post later tonight.

Cheers,

Originally posted by LemonJello
Then it's really quite simple: your concept of 'moral facts' is arbitrary and stupid, and there's not a single good reason why I should even entertain it further.

Would the concept of gravity being a brute fact that could change dispel any reason for your further entertaining it?

Originally posted by Halitose
Would the concept of gravity being a brute fact that could change dispel any reason for your further entertaining it?

Try to stay on topic, Halitose. Under knightmeister's ethical theory, for all we know, 'moral facts' are determined by milk pudding (and he admits as much). Now if that's not a stupid theory undeserving of my attention, I don't know what is.

Originally posted by bbarr
I don’t think that being fully virtuous is sufficient for living a flourishing human life, and it’s probably not necessary either (though it will be necessary for the vast range of human beings; human beings like you and me. Some human beings may have such bizarre psychologies that they don’t require things like nourishing interpersonal relationships, or mean ...[text shortened]... I can get on that front. I’ll respond to the rest of your post later tonight.

Cheers,

This is a nice post.