What I envy about theists

Originally posted by divegeester
One of the inserting dynamics of this forum is the propensity of certain theists to be blattently dishonest; galveston75 and robbie carrobie are two obvious examples but it seems LemonLime is happy in this space also.

'Never admit you were wrong or that you misstated something; always brazen it out' seems to be a maxims in play.

Originally posted by FMF
'Never admit you were wrong or that you misstated something; always brazen it out' seems to be a maxims in play.

Politicians employ the same tack, this possibly explains why those who use it here share in their lack of trust and respect.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, it isn't. So that needs to be settled first. Once settled, I stick it into the definition, and essentially say 'this is assumed, now lets flesh out the details'.
I think fleshing out the details may result in different answers by different people, and culturally biased answers that get passed around, but I dispute the claim that morality itself is cu ...[text shortened]... t, should they honestly sit down and discuss it, they will tend to come to the same conclusions.

I think you are on shaky ground here.

You are making a distinction between "morality" itself, which you claim is "universal and absolute for all" on the one hand, and the "fleshing out " of it on the other. The difference escapes me.

You are getting close to the Religious view that the Bible (or the Quoran, for that matter) is the Absolute for Morality.

When you take a close look at it, it could actually be said that the Ten Commandments, or at least the sub-set that regulates human interaction (don't lie, don't steal, don't murder) are absolutes that most societies accept.

But take for example the Eskimos. A good host would offer his wife's comfort for the night to a visitor as good hospitality. In other cultures that would be called adultery. So, maybe the "Absolute" in this case would be NOT "do not commit adultery", but fleshed out as saying "do not sleep with your neighbour's wife without the husband's consent".

Is that what you mean?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Why is it doomed? As rwingett says, it was considered perfectly acceptable in some cases in Biblical times. If you were to talk to some South African men, they would tell you that they find them perfectly acceptable today. They may have to watch out for the law, but they are not stopped by their moral intuitions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_vio ...[text shortened]... atal and Eastern Cape Provinces admitted to raping someone when anonymously questioned; [/quote]

There is no place to start moral philosophy other than the evaluative framework one actually occupies. I take it to be a commitment we share that rape and murder are paradigmatic examples of immoral action. Because of this commitment, any moral theory that yields a contrary verdict on rape and murder will be ruled out of court. These verdicts would constitute counter-examples to the theory. But, of course, one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens. A religious nut or psychopath could be perfectly comfortable with a theory that entails rape and murder are permissible. I'm not sure why any reasonable person would take the objections of a religious nut or psychopath seriously, however...

I'm sure some people think this dismissal is too quick and that rationally validating or justifying a moral theory must involve meeting the objections of the skeptic or the knave. I used to think this, too. Then I started reading Aristotle and learned not to worry so much. When you have friends and family, when you love and are loved, thrive and suffer, you end up with some pretty robust beliefs about the conditions under which human lives go better or worse. If you take morality at all seriously; if you recognize the reality and fundamental importance of others, then you begin to understand what it means to act well or poorly with regard to them and see the reasons to do the later. Being virtuous is, in this regard, like any other skill.

As Rwingett points out above, though, there are real worries about the proper scope of moral concern. In-group bias is a persistent and troubling aspect of human psychology, as Henri Tajfel pointed out in the late 1970's. It's interesting that the real moral progress we've seen over the past couple hundred years has had less to do with moral theorizing than with expanding the scope of moral concern to women, other racial and ethnic groups, to non-humans and now even the biosphere more generally.

Originally posted by josephw
I think so.

Take conscientiousness for example. It seems to me to be more than just matter on matter.

How can matter produce awareness of itself? I can't fathom it being.

Here it seems like you're running together a few different things. Conscientiousness is something like thoughtfulness or diligence with regard to moral obligations. Consciousness is different, and even here there are different senses of the term. Ned Block, a pioneering philosopher of mind, has differentiated between access consciousness, self-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Access consciousness is the capacity to use certain information in one's psychological operations. Self-consciousness is the capacity to represent to one's self one's own internal psychological states. Phenomenal consciousness is the capacity for there to be 'something it's like', internally, to be an entity; it's having a subjective point of view. I'm not sure which, if any, of these notions you're worried about.

Originally posted by bbarr
It's interesting that the real moral progress we've seen over the past couple hundred years has had less to do with moral theorizing than with expanding the scope of moral concern to women, other racial and ethnic groups, to non-humans and now even the biosphere more generally.

Never considered this explanation before but its very apt.

Perhaps all morality expands from the rights we give ourselves as individuals, from this we give those rights to our family, then our social group, village, nation, ethnicity ... gradually expanding that sphere of "worthy ones".

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Never considered this explanation before but its very apt.

Perhaps all morality expands from the rights we give ourselves as individuals, from this we give those rights to our family, then our social group, village, nation, ethnicity ... gradually expanding that sphere of "worthy ones".

I think something like this is correct. There are interesting questions about the details, though. I'm not sure that, in practice, the primary object of moral concern is the individual. Contrary to the fictions of social contract theorists, we're first and foremost social creatures. We're born into and acculturated by families and tribes. Who has ever inferred from their own self-concern to the conclusion that their mother is also morally important? This point aside, the expansion of the sphere of moral concern is a real and important fact about human culture over the past couple hundred years. Of course there are fits and starts; we've also seen some of the most horrific atrocities in the 20th century.

In any case, when my students got clear on why they took themselves to be morally important, they then pretty much spontaneously started taking even non-human others seriously as well. Kant wasn't right about everything, but there's something importantly right in his idea that immorality is form of inconsistency; that in treating others poorly we're irrationally taking ourselves to be a unique locus of moral importance.

I think there is still a lot of confusion about what we mean by 'morality'.
In my understanding, morality is not a set of rules to live by. If your religion, or society prescribes a set of rules for you to follow and you do follow them, you are not acting morally, and those rules are not morality. If your religion tells you to get up at 5 am and perform two bows to the East, this is not a moral action. Morality deals specifically with our interactions with others, and our compassion and understanding of others as entities like ourselves. Anything else is not morality.
Thus I say that the concept of compassion and understanding of others applies universally. It is not relative or cultural in nature. If you lack all compassion and care not for others, then you do not have a different morality from other people, you simply lack morality.
If you have a set of religious rules that do not involve compassion and care for others then they are not a moral code. If you have a set of religious rules that go against compassion and care for others then it is an immoral code. It is not relative, it is not cultural, it is morally wrong.

I agree with bbarr that the so called 'moral progress' of the last few centuries is largely a result of recognizing more people and animals as worthy of compassion. Who or what we recognize as worthy of compassion may be cultural. What we recognize as a reasonable excuse not to be compassionate may be cultural. But I dispute any claim that morality consists of an arbitrary set of culturally determined codes.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think there is still a lot of confusion about what we mean by 'morality'.
In my understanding, morality is not a set of rules to live by. If your religion, or society prescribes a set of rules for you to follow and you do follow them, you are not acting morally, and those rules are not morality. If your religion tells you to get up at 5 am and perform ...[text shortened]... t I dispute any claim that morality consists of an arbitrary set of culturally determined codes.

Let's suppose that some group had a code of personal conduct for its members. Suppose this particular code has nothing to do with compassion or concern for others but, say, prescribes in excruciating detail how one is to conduct oneself in regards to one's alone time and to personal matters, regarding points that are arbitrary and should not actually matter much. Suppose also, for some reason, that this group takes this code of conduct and its adherence to be of significant importance. According to you, this code is not a matter of 'morality' for both of two reasons: (a) its points do not involve compassion and concern for others and (b) it is an arbitrary set of culturally determined points.

But here's another take on it. It qualifies as a moral code, as a morality, in virtue of the fact that it purports to impose prescriptions on its adherents' conduct over a significant portion of their existence and in a way that they treat with collective and individual seriousness. It's a moral code, but the problem is that there seems to be no actual justification for it, since its precepts are arbitrary, overreaching, and focused on irrelevant minutiae (this despite the fact that its adherents take it seriously).

Anyway, I thought we had already agreed that there are two major different senses in which the term can be applied – descriptively versus normatively. If, say, some group has some extensive but totally bizarre code of conduct, we can talk in descriptive terms about the components this group's "morality" or "moral code". It will be a completely different and separate discussion, however, concerning whether or not this moral code is justified, or fair, or makes any sense, or is worth taking seriously, etc. This further discussion will perhaps naturally involve talk of compassion, prosociality, arbitrarity, etc. I think this more readily captures the distinction that interests us here. We can talk descriptively about 'morality' in terms of what prescriptive attitudes groups or individuals may hold, whatever may comprise them. But then there's a further discussion regarding what views are actually correct or justified.