JASON STREITFELD SAID:
“Apparently you're not interested in understanding or faithfully representing what I've written.”
I answered you on your own grounds. You said that Rhology was “scum.” That’s a value judgment. But you also said that morality is a process of negotiation. Yet you didn’t negotiate with Rhology over the propriety of your epithet.
You also like to hurl epithets like “fascist.” Yet, by your own definition of morality, fascism is a social convention. A social contract. So there’s nothing wrong with fascism if we apply your own definition of morality to the phenomenon of fascism.
For example, you said:
“That’s easy. Authority is granted by convention, of course. The most rationally conceived authority is one most adapted to the needs of the community and most adaptive to the demands of reason. Morality is all a matter of justification, after all. So, a moral authority is a person or body of persons whose decisions on moral questions are respected within a community.”
i) But Nazi German satisfied those conditions—for Germans. That was their social contract.
ii) And while we're on the subject, how can a social contract define what rights we have? After all, a process of negotiation assumes at the outset that we have a right to enter into contractual negotiations. That right can’t derive from social contract theory. For human rights or civil rights would be a result of such negotiations, and not a presupposition thereof.
“I've explained what morality is.”
Indeed you did. And I simply used some concrete examples like the Third Reich, Double Indemnity, and The Godfather to illustrate the cash-value of your explanation.
“How it is objective.”
Indeed you did. This is how you attempt to explain objective morality:
“Now, listen. I will explain what an objective moral authority is. In so doing, it should be clear why your argument is bankrupt on two fronts: first, because you wrongly accuse atheists of lacking objective moral authority; second, because you wrongly claim to have an objective moral authority of your own. See, I’m about to turn your argument upside down. Ready?”
Ready.
“The term ‘objective’ refers to that which can be observed and measured by anybody (in theory, of course), and not what is only available for a single person. Of course, people react differently to objective events, and no matter how similar people’s experiences tend to be, there is often some small difference in what they observe and measure. Yet, in so far as something is theoretically available to be observed and measured, we call it ‘objective,’ even if our observations and measurements are not always exactly the same. Often we have to negotiate an understanding of objective events, because our experiences aren’t always exactly the same. In this way, objectivity can be established through discourse.”
Unfortunately for you, there are some basic problems with this explanation:
i) We can observe an event, but the rightness or wrongness of an event is unobservable. Moral properties are not empirical properties. We can observe a bank robbery, but the bank robbery doesn’t look or sound or smell or taste or feel right or wrong.
ii) What metric to you use to measure morality? What units of measurement do you employ? Is morality measured in liters or meters?
Is something wrong because is has more liters/meters of wrongness or fewer meters/liters of wrongness? How do you empirically measure the immorality of murder—assuming you think that murder is wrong?
Here’s another definition you gave: “Morality is a process of deciding what is best for humanity and civilization.”
i) Of course, this begs the question since you first need to derive and justify the concept of “best” before you can apply it to a concrete situation.
ii) You also beg the question of what humanity and civilization even matters. Why assume that what is good for humanity is good? Is what is good for Stalin good?
Why, on your grounds, should humanity exist, survive, and prosper?
Here you give it another try:
“Justice, beauty, truth, rights . . . these are human values. We all have them because we have working human brains and because we are actively involved in the world around us.”
How does that distinguish the mass murderer from the philanthropist? Stalin had a working human brain. And he was actively involved in the world around him. Very active!
“I've explained why notions of ‘God’ are meaningless, and why they cannot be used to justify any moral arguments.”
Indeed you did. You appealed to “theological noncognitivism,” which is just a warmed over version of the long discredited school of logical positivism.
You also claim that “The term ‘supernatural’ is meant to refer to that which cannot be observed or comprehended in any rational way. The supernatural cannot possibly be understood. Ever. By anyone.”
“Theologians for ages have known that the term ‘God’ is defined in a way that is impossible to understand. By recognizing the lack of coherence here, I am only pointing out what religious believers through the ages have willingly acknowledged. They have claimed that the inability to understand the meaning of the term ‘God’ is one of the main reasons why God must be embraced as a matter of faith.”
i) I notice that you don’t actually quote any theologians to that effect. What theologians have you actually read? List some names and titles to document your sweeping claim.
ii) At best, your claim would only apply to the apophatic tradition. But many theologians are not apophatic theologians. For example, Francis Turretin, in the Institutes of Elenctic Theology, spends a lot of time carefully defining the divine attributes.
Or, to take a modern example, Kathrin Rogers, in Perfect Being Theology, devotes several chapters to carefully defining certain divine attributes.
Therefore, you historical claim is demonstrably ignorant and demonstrably false.
iii) But let’s take a specific case. Take the conventional definition of divine omnipotence: God can instantiate any compossible state of affairs.
Try to explain how that concept is either unintelligible or incoherent.
“I have not expressed any dogmatic allegiance to any texts, not even the Humanist Manifesto, contrary to your suggestion.”
i) You were dismissing Biblical ethics on the mere grounds that it’s contained in a book. An old book. “It's just a collection of really old stories.”
Are you now modifying your original objection?
Christians don’t believe in Biblical ethics because it’s contained in a book. A book is just an information storage and retrieval mechanism.
ii) You also object to Biblical ethics because it’s “old.” But how is that germane to your own definition of morality? An old social convention would be just as valid or invalid as a new social convention. What makes it valid is not the age of the convention, but its conventional acceptance.
“By the way, you are totally misreading the point about ‘selfish’ genes. The point is that human altruism can be explained as the product of natural selection, as the result of genes that are not interested in our own well-being, but which just go about replicating themselves as much as possible. That does not mean that human beings are all scumbags.”
Several problems:
i) Dawkins says that human beings are reducible to bacteria. Cellular colonies of bacteria. Question: does a bacterium have rights? Does a colony of bacteria have rights?
ii) He also says we’re blindly programmed robots. Question: do blindly programmed robots have rights?
iii) To “justify” altruism by appealing to natural selection commits the naturalistic fallacy. Morality is not about what is, but what ought to be. Even if our sense of altruism is a product of natural selection, that’s a descriptive statement, not a normative statement.
iv) Moreover, once we become aware of our evolutionary conditioning, we’re in a position to resist our evolutionary conditioning. It only works if we’re unaware of it. Like someone who’s been brainwashed. The moment he becomes conscious of the fact that he’s been brainwashed, the programming breaks down.
So you have yet to explain why we should be altruistic. Selfish genes won’t do the trick.
“You say atheism cannot account for abstractions. Sure it can, and we can talk about abstractions without postulating any non-physical realm.”
i) Sure about that? Do you even know what an abstract object is?
Take possible worlds. At one point you say “There are also some laws which apply to any possible world in which certain conditions are met.”
What is your point of reference? For you, the real world is all there is, and the real world is physical.
So where do possible worlds come from? Not from the real world, since a possible world is a way the real world might have been, but isn’t. A possible world is a world apart from the real world. An unexemplified possibility. Unexemplified in space and time. It doesn't exist in the actual world.
The real world is a possible world which has been instantiated in time and space.
ii) Or what about infinite sets, like the Mandelbrot set. In what does that inhere? Not in the human mind, since the human mind is finite.
Yet a set must include all its members. A set is a given totality. To what physical structure does the Mandelbrot set correspond?
We can represent the Mandelbrot set, but that’s not the same thing. A representation of something is not the thing-in-itself.
Likewise, we can define or formulate the Mandelbrot set, but that’s not the same thing as the thing-in-itself.
Secular Scumbags
ReplyDeleteThe surgery being done to expose the rot underneath was badly needed.
The approach taken by Rhology in inviting Streitfeld to account for the Laws of Logic is also useful, although it requires a bit of intellectual honesty and humility. Most people, when hoisted by their own petard, react very badly and they just continue to thrash in refusal when surrender to the Truth is the obviously wise choice.
If I were to bet, I'd bet that Streitfeld will thrash. But God can do anything.
BTW, you always run across indignant and ignorant atheists like Jason who complain that Christians supposedly misrepresent the moral implications of atheism and naturalistic evolution. Jason tried to rescue Dawkins’ claim from the moral abyss, but here is what the Darwinian philosopher of science, Michael Ruse, has to say about the moral implications of evolutionary ethics:
ReplyDeleteI think I would still say—part of my position on morality is very much that we regard morality in some sense as being objective, even if it isn’t. So the claim that we intuit morality as objective reality—I would still say that. Of course, what I would want to add is that from the fact that we do this, it doesn’t follow that morality really is objective.
I’m saying that if in fact you’re Christian then you believe you were made in the image of God. And that means—and this is traditional Christian theology—that means that you have intelligence and self-awareness and moral ability… it’s a very important part of Christianity that our intelligence is not just a contingent thing, but is in fact that which makes us in the image of God.
What I would argue is that the connection between Darwinism and ethics is not what the traditional social Darwinian argues. He or she argues that evolution is progressive, humans came out on top and therefore are a good thing, hence we should promote evolution to keep humans up there and to prevent decline. I think that is a straight violation of the is/ought dichotomy…I take Hume’s Law to be the claim that you cannot go from statements of fact—“Duke University is the school attended by Eddy Nahmias”—to statements of value—“Duke University is an excellent school.”
Ed [Edward O. Wilson] does violate Hume’s Law, and no matter what I say he cannot see that there is anything wrong in doing this. It comes from his commitment to the progressive nature of evolution. No doubt he would normally say that one should not go from “is” to “ought”—for example from “I like that student” to “It is OK to have sex with her, even though I am married.” But in this case of *evolution* he allows it. If you say to him, “But ‘ought’ statements are not like ‘is’ statements,” he replies that in science, when we have reduction, we do this all the time, going from one kind of statement to another kind of statement. We start talking about little balls buzzing in a container and end talking about temperature and pressure. No less a jump than going from “is” to “ought.”
My position is that the ethical sense can be explained by Darwinian evolution—the ethical sense is an adaptation to keep us social. More than this, I argue that sometimes (and this is one of those times), when you give an account of the way something occurs and is as it is, this is also to give an explanation of its status. I think that once you see that ethics is simply an adaptation, you see that it has no justification. It just is. So in metaethics[4] I am a nonrealist. I think ethics is an illusion put into place by our genes to keep us social.
I distinguish normative ethics from metaethics. In normative ethics I think evolution can go a long way to explain our feelings of obligation: be just, be fair, treat others like yourself. We humans are social animals and we need these sentiments to get on. I like John Rawls’s[5] thinking on this. On about page 500 of his Theory of Justice book, Rawls says he thinks the social contract was put in place by evolution rather than by a group of old men many years ago. Then in metaethics, I think we see that morality is an adaptation merely and hence has no justification. Having said this, I agree with the philosopher J.L Mackie[6] (who influenced me a lot) that we feel the need to “objectify” ethics. If we did not think ethics was objective, it would collapse under cheating.
If we knew that it was all just subjective, and we felt that, then of course we’d start to cheat. If I thought there was no real reason not to sleep with someone else’s wife and that it was just a belief system put in place to keep me from doing it, then I think the system would start to break down. And if I didn’t share these beliefs, I’d say to hell with it, I’m going to do it. So I think at some level, morality has to have some sort of, what should I say, some sort of force. Put it this way, I shouldn’t cheat, not because I can’t get away with it, or maybe I *can* get away with it, but because it is fundamentally wrong.
We’re like dogs, social animals, and so we have morality and this part of the phenomenology of morality, how it appears to us, that it is not subjective, that we think it *is* objective…So I think ethics is essentially subjective but it appears to us as objective and this appearance, too, is an adaptation.
Within the system, of course, rape is objectively wrong—just like three strikes and you are out in baseball. But I’m a nonrealist, so ultimately there is no objective right and wrong for me. Having said that, I *am* part of the system and cannot escape. The truth does not necessarily make you free.
There is no ultimate truth about morality. It is an invention—an invention of the genes rather than of humans, and we cannot change games at will, as one might baseball if one went to England and played cricket. Within the system, the human moral system, it is objectively true that rape is wrong. That follows from the principles of morality and from human nature. If our females came into heat, it would not necessarily be objectively wrong to rape—in fact, I doubt we would have the concept of rape at all. So, within the system, I can justify. But I deny that human morality at the highest level—love your neighbor as yourself, etc.—is justifiable. That is why I am not deriving “is” from “ought,” in the illicit sense of justification. I am deriving it in the sense of explaining *why we have* moral sentiments, but that is a different matter.
I think ultimately there is nothing—moral nihilism, if you wish.
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200307/?read=interview_ruse
Speaking of morality, here's a question.
ReplyDeleteI assume that you believe you can determine God's movement in your life, helping you interpret Scripture, confirming your election, speaking as a voice of conscience and so forth. You've alluded to "supernatural confirmation" before, I believe?
So, say you had a directive which REASONABLY was the voice of God commanding you to murder your child. Would you do it, or would you refuse such a directive, thinking it a prompting of the Devil?
Further, let's say you could move beyond reasonable certainty to ABSOLUTE certainty that it was the voice of God. What would the method be for determining it with "certainty" versus "reasonable certainty", if there was any? Finally, would you do it? (No, I'm not suggesting you'd "enjoy" it in any way. I'm trying to determine your framework for what is moral.)
ii) What metric to you use to measure morality? What units of measurement do you employ? Is morality measured in liters or meters?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't one of Plantinga's arguments against the problem of evil entail the employment of 'turps' as units of morality?
But Nazi German satisfied those conditions—for Germans. That was their social contract.
Not sure that point flies, since the people being persecuted didn't enter into any agreement/social 'contract' as to how they were treated. In fact, quite the opposite.
That said, I pretty much agree with the points you quoted from Michael Ruse. I can see how it's possible to build a logically coherent system of morality from a given starting assumption (eg inidividual rights/self-ownership), but you'd always be left with the problem that the starting point is really a subjective assumption that not everyone will agree to. Not ideal, but such is life.
So where do possible worlds come from? Not from the real world, since a possible world is a way the real world might have been, but isn’t. A possible world is a world apart from the real world. An unexemplified possibility. Unexemplified in space and time. It doesn't exist in the actual world.
Didn't David Lewis think that possible worlds actually existed?
"Not sure that point flies, since the people being persecuted didn't enter into any agreement/social 'contract' as to how they were treated. In fact, quite the opposite."
ReplyDeleteOf course the more sophisticated contractarians don't suppose anyone actualy *had to* enter into the contract. It's more of an explanatory model...
...Anyway, your point fails to take into account some basic contractarian points. For starters, all those born into the country don't volitionally enter into contracts, but they are said to implicitly accept said constraits by living there. Same with aliens and people who come to said country from their own, with their own social contract. Given your aparent niave view of contractarianism, illegal aiens don't need to enter our country ligally or obey its laws. After all, "the people being [punished for law violations] didn't enter into any agreement/social 'contract' as to how they were treated."
DR FUNKENSTEIN SAID:
ReplyDelete“Doesn't one of Plantinga's arguments against the problem of evil entail the employment of 'turps' as units of morality?”
As I recall, he employs that moral unit for satirical purposes.
“Not sure that point flies, since the people being persecuted didn't enter into any agreement/social 'contract' as to how they were treated. In fact, quite the opposite.”
Are you claiming that the social contract depends on unanimous consent? In that event, there could be no civil or criminal law code since lawbreakers don’t feel bound by the terms of the contract.
“Didn't David Lewis think that possible worlds actually existed?”
Jason doesn’t avail himself of Lewisonian modal realism. He instead says:
“This is not to say that the others actually exist in some non-physical realm. Rather, it is to say that they exist only as possibilities.”
Does it factor into any of this that Jason has the longest atheist blogroll perhaps in this known world? Is it perhaps representative of an infinite atheist blogroll?
ReplyDeleteJAMES SAID:
ReplyDelete“Speaking of morality, here's a question.__I assume that you believe you can determine God's movement in your life, helping you interpret Scripture,”
Actually, I use Scripture to interpret God’s providence in my life.
“Confirming your election.”
Not really. The assurance of election is contingent on faith in Christ.
“Speaking as a voice of conscience and so forth.”
I use Scripture to interpret conscience.
“You've alluded to ‘supernatural confirmation’ before, I believe?”
In the subtle sense of providence.
“So, say you had a directive which REASONABLY was the voice of God commanding you to murder your child.”
Your hypothetical is predicated on the “reasonable” identification of this directive as a divine directive. That’s not an assumption I’m prepared to grant, even for hypothetical purposes.
You’re attempting to generate a tension between two opposing religious duties. But if they were truly opposed, they wouldn’t both be duties. So the hypothetical is fundamentally incoherent.
“Would you do it, or would you refuse such a directive, thinking it a prompting of the Devil?”
There’s a standing divine directive against murder (the 6th commandment). That takes precedence.
“Further, let's say you could move beyond reasonable certainty to ABSOLUTE certainty that it was the voice of God.”
It’s easy to cook up a hypothetical dilemma. But since the dilemma is purely hypothetical and counterfactual, who cares? It’s not a realistic conundrum.
What you’ve done is to artificially generate a moral incongruity. But the very incongruity of your scenario divorces it from any real world situation. It’s not a live possibility. Or even abstract possibility.
It’s like asking what it would feel like for me to be a clam. Well, if I were a clam, I’d be so unlike the man that I have no frame of reference to compare the two.
All you’ve done is to modify the concept of God, then ask if I still have the same religious obligations. Obviously not.
Sure, you can postulate a fictitious tension in which “God” commands what “God” forbids, or “God” forbids what “God” commands—but the exercise is fraught with equivocation.
“What would the method be for determining it with ‘certainty’ versus ‘reasonable certainty’, if there was any?”
Of course, your thought-experiment is sheer imagination, so what you really mean is criteria to distinguish imaginary absolute certainty from imaginary reasonable certainty.
What about criteria to distinguish 2-year-old unicorns from 4-year old unicorns?
Sorry, but I have more important things to do with my time.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteWith regards to James' hypotheticals I agree with your assessment, but I have some difficulty with the ethics present in the more concrete Genesis accounts of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I recognize the significance of the event in the history of redemption as pre-figuring the sacrifice of Christ, and the significance of Abraham reconciling the tension between God's promise and God's command, as in Heb. 11:19.
However, does the progress of revelation (i.e. the eventual giving of the Mosaic law-covenant, "thou shalt not murder") make the ethical conundrum a moot point for Abraham? Wasn't murder unethical even in the time of Abraham?
I find Kierkegaard's proposition that God enacts a "telelogical suspension of the ethical" to be interesting, but largely unhelpful in this regard. Seems like special pleading.
Any resources you could recommend in this regard or any direction you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Deadbolt et al,
ReplyDeleteI recently discussed the question of Abraham and Isaac. It might be a useful read for you. This post represents me attempting to work the thing out. I might be wrong... but I might not be. ;-)
LOCKTHEDEADBOLT,
ReplyDeleteIn context, the problem generated in Gen 22 is not a moral or emotional conundrum. That’s what modern readers tend to seize on. But that’s extraneous to the point of the episode.
Rather, the tension operates at a number of different levels:
i) There’s the apparent dilemma between God’s promise and God’s command, where his command seems to be at odds with his promise. If Isaac dies, how will the promise be fulfilled?
ii) There’s a tension between Abraham’s viewpoint and God’s viewpoint. God knows something Abraham doesn’t; to wit: God will not allow Abraham to carry through with the sacrifice.
And that tension is what makes it a test of faith.
iii) There is also a tension between Abraham’s viewpoint and the reader’s viewpoint. The omniscient narrator assumes a God’s-eye viewpoint, and the reader shares the viewpoint of the narrator. The reader knows how the story will end.
As such, the reader can’t fully identify with the predicament of Abraham, for the reader is privy to some key information which instantly relieves the apparent dilemma (between command and promise).
iv) There was no suspension of the prohibition against murder since the sacrifice was hypothetical (unbeknownst to Abraham).
v) In principle, God can command one person to kill another. Indeed, he’s done so in the past. And there are situations in which that’s still applicable (e.g. the death penalty).
a) But, from our historical position, you and I can’t recapitulate the role of Abraham. We know how the story ends. Abraham was out of the loop. We are not.
b) Moreover, Abraham was a strategic figure in redemptive history. But you and I stand on the other side of that process. We’re not in a position to recapitulate his responsibilities.
c) Furthermore, the age of public revelation is over and done with. The Bible is now our rule of faith, not private revelation.
Roger that. Thanks for tying up some of my mental loose ends.
ReplyDeletesteve, you were featured on monergism.
ReplyDelete"Sure, you can postulate a fictitious tension in which “God” commands what “God” forbids, or “God” forbids what “God” commands—but the exercise is fraught with equivocation."
ReplyDeleteIsn't that what Calvinism asserts? God secretly wills, decrees and ordains that which He has openly forbidden. He commands that certain evil actions occur, even if He has explicitly condemned them, and because He is God, these decrees are unavoidable, correct?
Are you saying there really is no tension or that God doesn't do that?
Isn't that what Calvinism asserts? God secretly wills, decrees and ordains that which He has openly forbidden. He commands that certain evil actions occur, even if He has explicitly condemned them, and because He is God, these decrees are unavoidable, correct?
ReplyDeleteYou're confusing the decree with a command.
God ordains all things, like an author who writes a book. This makes all things certain. That's his decree.
His commandments are His law. God decrees all things occur. This is executed by various means - ordinary and extraordinary providence. That's causality. He does not COMMAND what He has condemned. Do you understand this distinction, James?
I'm sure you've heard the phrase "permissive will", yes? If that's what you're referring to, then it makes perfect sense, rationally and theologically. He can foreknow and decree (allow) that some things will happen for whatever purposes. That's not the same as suggesting He was the initiator of those events.
ReplyDeleteTo say that He "forces the hand" of those those who do evil while simultaneously insisting He remains untainted by evil seems a stretch, however. In fact, evil becomes just a meaningless word that we attach to anything that isn't of Him (which really doesn't tell us anything).
There are many Calvinists who deny free will: that ultimately, God is "pulling the strings" of everyone: good and evil alike.
James said:
ReplyDelete---
To say that He "forces the hand" of those those who do evil while simultaneously insisting He remains untainted by evil seems a stretch, however.
---
Let's deal with concrete examples then. I'll take the religious aspects out of it for the time being to make it simpler for you to grasp it.
Example 1.
Suppose that Adam is good friends with Bill. Adam is also friends with Charlie, but Bill dislikes Charlie. Now suppose that Bill wins three tickets to a Metallica concert. He knows that Adam likes Metallica, and he knows that Charlie likes Metallica. He also knows that if he asks Adam to go Adam will insist that Charlie is brought along too.
Bill decides that he likes Adam enough to be willing to put up with Charlie and invites all three to the concert. If we stipulate that giving the free tickets is a good thing, then does Bill do a good thing in giving tickets to both Adam and Charlie? Obviously the answer is yes.
But was Bill's motivation to do good for Charlie? No. Bill's motivation was to benefit Adam, and Charlie's benefit is accidental to that benefit. Bill couldn't care less about Charlie's benefit; Charlie only benefits because Bill likes Adam.
So if we say that the moral good is the intent to benefit each party, Bill did not do a moral good for Charlie.
This basic distinction will help us as we consider...
Example 2.
Adam and Bill are still friends, and Adam is still friends with Charlie. However, Bill not only dislikes Charlie now, but he completely hates Charlie. He wants nothing but harm to fall upon Charlie.
In this case, Bill decides to hatch a plot. He tells Adam that he will give tickets to both Adam and Charlie, but Bill intends to shove Charlie into the mosh pit when Adam isn't looking and bash him into unconsciousness. However, when the day comes, Adam manages to keep Bill from harming Charlie.
Is it morally good that Bill gave tickets to Adam? Yes. Is it morally good that Bill gave tickets to Charlie? In terms of just the benefit received, obviously Charlie enjoys the concert. But the intent Bill had was to give them only as a means to harm Charlie. That he was unable to carry out his plan does not mkae his intentions good.
This brings us to...
Example 3.
The relationship of the three in example 2 is still the same. But this time, Bill does not have any active plans to harm Charlie. Instead, he doesn't want to give the tickets to either Adam or Charlie because he hates Charlie that much.
Adam, in this case, decides to act. He wants to gain the benefit of going to the concert, and he wants to benefit Charlie too. So he tells Bill, "If you give us tickets, Charlie will be near the mosh pit." But Adam also knows (infallibly for the sake of argument) that he can keep Bill from harming Charlie.
Bill sees that this would be a great shot at harming Charlie so he agrees. He gives the tickets to Adam and Charlie, Adam keeps Charlie safe, and Adam and Charlie enjoy the concert.
In this circumstance, how does the moral situation play out? Let's consider Bill first. Obviously, he intended to benefit neither Adam nor Charlie. He intended merely to harm Charlie. His intentions were thwarted and both Adam and Charlie enjoyed the concert. It's clear that on the level of intentions, Bill did not act good here. His was completely evil.
What about Adam? Adam didn't lie to Bill, for indeed Charlie was close to the mosh pit. Bill just was unable to capitalize on this to attack Charlie. Furthermore, Adam secured the tickets for both himself and for Charlie, which was what his intentions were. His intentions were to benefit Charlie (and himself), both of which are good intentions, and he also intended to make sure Bill couldn't harm Charlie (another good intention). I don't see where Adam did anything morally wrong here.
This instance would come the closest (without absolute divine intervention) to the questions you raised about God. Whether you can immediately connect it or not, it is important for you to realize at least the fact that two moral agents can both be acting in the exact same situation with diametrically opposed moral intentions despite the fact that the outcome is identical in both instances. If you can grasp that much, we have grounds to continue to further probe the issue.
Hopefully, however, you'll see beyond that.
It looks like I’m not going to have time to respond to every post here, but I’ll try to work my way through them as much as time allows.
ReplyDeleteFor now, the original post:
“by your own definition of morality, fascism is a social convention. A social contract.”
That doesn’t follow from my understanding of morality. By my definition of morality, fascism is the negation of contracts, because it denies the ability of individuals to negotiate contracts.
You said Nazi Germany satisfied my conditions for morality. Yet, Nazi Germany was not based upon the most rational arguments available. It does not meet my criteria.
You say that “a process of negotiation assumes at the outset that we have a right to enter into contractual negotiations.”
No, it need not make that assumption.
You say, “We can observe an event, but the rightness or wrongness of an event is unobservable. Moral properties are not empirical properties. We can observe a bank robbery, but the bank robbery doesn’t look or sound or smell or taste or feel right or wrong.”
This is funny, because you and others here make continual reference to conscience as a guiding factor in your moralizing. What is conscience, if not the “feel” of right and wrong?
So, which is it? Do you deny that we can have feelings about what is right or wrong, or do you simply deny that such feelings can be manifest in a physical way?
I imagine you wish to claim that feelings cannot be physical. Such a claim is absurd for two reasons: first, because neuroscientists are making measurable progress in understanding just how feelings are produced by brains; second, because you have yet to define what a non-physical existence would be or how it could be recognized as distinct from physical existence.
“How do you empirically measure the immorality of murder—assuming you think that murder is wrong?”
I measure the right or wrongness of an action by whether or not I want to live in a society where such actions are considered right or wrong.
You say, “you first need to derive and justify the concept of “best” before you can apply it to a concrete situation.”
Justify the concept? Okay, here’s a justification of the concept: Given that we can only consider a finite set of options, and we can evaluate the relative desirability of different options, we can determine which option (or set of options) seems the best.
Would you like me to explain any other rudimentary concepts here?
You ask, “Why assume that what is good for humanity is good? Is what is good for Stalin good?”
I’m not making any such assumptions.
”Why, on your grounds, should humanity exist, survive, and prosper?”
I think humanity should exist and prosper, because I want myself and everyone I love to exist and proper. If you don’t think humanity should survive or prosper, then we have a fundamental disagreement of values.
You say I “appealed” to theological noncognotivism. Actually, no, I didn’t appeal to it. I argued for it. If you wish to address my arguments about that, feel free. It seems you do not want to address those arguments, however, because you chose instead to dismiss them as “just a warmed over version of the long discredited school of logical positivism.”
Either address my arguments, or don’t. But this kind of dismissal is clearly unwarranted.
Now, you wish to accuse me of ignorance, when in fact all you are doing is misreading my words. (You do that a lot, you know.)
In response to my assertions about negative theology, you said, “At best, your claim would only apply to the apophatic tradition.”
Yes, that’s right. I was talking about the apophatic tradition.
Then you point out that “many theologians are not apophatic theologians.”
Good for you, Steve. But, Steve, you see, I never said that ALL theologians were apophatic.
Your conclusion that my “historical claim is demonstrably ignorant and demonstrably false” is demonstrably based on your demonstrable tendency to put words in my mouth.
That’s not a respectable habit you have there, Steve.
Next you ask me to explain why it is unintelligible or incoherent to think that God can instantiate any possible state of affairs. To answer that question, I’d first have to know what the term “God” refers to. As I explained to Rhology, the term is defined in self-contradictory ways. E.g., God is defined to exist outside of space and time. This implies that God does not exist at all, because to exist is to persist over time. This is a contradiction.
Ready for a shock? You put more words in my mouth here: “You were dismissing Biblical ethics on the mere grounds that it’s contained in a book. An old book.”
Nowhere did I dismiss the Bible’s ethics solely on the grounds that it is an old book. You say that was my “original objection.” Steve, you are a liar. It’s shameful.
You ask, “do blindly programmed robots have rights?”
I don’t see why any rational agent should be denied rights, no matter their cellular composition and no matter how they came to be. So, blindly programmed robot or not, it makes no difference to me.
”To “justify” altruism by appealing to natural selection commits the naturalistic fallacy. Morality is not about what is, but what ought to be. Even if our sense of altruism is a product of natural selection, that’s a descriptive statement, not a normative statement.”
Let’s break this down and look at what you’re actually saying.
First, you are correctly pointing out that morality is about what “ought to be.” Of course, morality must take into account what is; if it didn’t, it would be irrelevant.
Thus, your moralizing, for example, takes into account what you think is the most important conditions for guiding your moral principles: namely, “God”, the Bible, etc. So, you make reference to what is when you discuss what ought to be.
Clearly, moralizing requires an understanding of what is as well as notions about what ought to be. And, of course, we should not forget the difference between the two.
But now, look at what you say next. You say, “even if our sense of altruism is a product of natural selection, that’s a descriptive statement, not a normative statement.”
And? You think this has some negative implications for my argument, Steve?
Steve, please . . . just try to think here.
The claim that altruism is a product of natural selection is not an “ought.” It is an “is,” just like the many “is” statements you take into account when you approach your own convoluted undertanding of morality. And I am not confusing it for an “ought” statement.
I am not saying that morality ought to be a product of natural selection. If I was making such a bizarre statement, then you might have a point. But since I’m not, your flailing about here is truly absurd.
Next, you say, “once we become aware of our evolutionary conditioning, we’re in a position to resist our evolutionary conditioning. It only works if we’re unaware of it. Like someone who’s been brainwashed.”
Ah, so if I try hard enough, I can condition myself to survive indefinitely without food or water? Wow. I didn’t know that.
Your insight is astounding, Steve. Really . . . this is impressive stuff.
You say, “So you have yet to explain why we should be altruistic. Selfish genes won’t do the trick.”
People are altruistic, at times, under certain conditions, because it is advantageous for the replication of their genes. This, of course, says nothing about whether or not being altruistic is good for you or anybody else you know. It only describes what has tended to be good for our genes.
So, why should people be altruistic? Game theorists have shown that a “tit for tat” approach to cooperation tends to be very successful in certain populations. It is most likely the case that human beings have evolved so that we work best together when we demonstrate a certain amount of trust and mutual interest with other members of our communities.
In short, altruism makes sense, given the right conditions.
You ask, “Do you even know what an abstract object is?”
First of all, it isn’t at all clear that you do. So far, you’ve only defined the “mental realm” in negative terms, as something that cannot be quantified. Your definition would make abstract objects unquantifiable, and thus unknowable. I presume you don’t think mathematical objects, like numbers, are unquantifiable, do you?
So your understanding of abstract objects is incoherent.
My understanding is as follows: abstract objects are algorithms, like computer programs.
Your view is that abstraction requires representation, and that physical systems cannot represent on their own. And yet, neuroscientists have already made some headway into understanding just how the brain produces representations. You can deny this evidence, just like you deny the evidence in favor of evolutionary theory, of course.
You ask, “where do possible worlds come from? Not from the real world, since a possible world is a way the real world might have been, but isn’t.”
The phrase “possible world” is an abstraction, an algorithm. You are confusing thoughts with reality. You do that a lot.
And you ask, “Or what about infinite sets, like the Mandelbrot set. In what does that inhere? Not in the human mind, since the human mind is finite.”
Sets are algorithms. You assume that every definable set corresponds to something beyond itself, something beyond the algoritm. That's a nonsensical view.
To see this, consider the following issue. You wish to assert that there is some abstract realm in which all of the infinite and transfinite numbers actually exist. And yet, Godel proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent. This means that, if there were some weird realm in which mathematics was complete, then that realm would contain internal contradictions.
How do you explain this?
Of course, it would help if you coherently defined your terms in the first place.
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“That doesn’t follow from my understanding of morality. By my definition of morality, fascism is the negation of contracts, because it denies the ability of individuals to negotiate contracts.”
i) A social contract isn’t individualistic. Every individual isn’t free to negotiate or renegotiate the terms of the contract. That would be anarchy.
There may be individuals who would like to renegotiate the US Constitution. But they don’t have the authority to individually renegotiate the contract.
ii) And if you do think it’s individualistic, then you violated your own principle when you said Rhology was “scum” without allowing him, as an individual, to bargain with you over the terms of your moralistic value judgment. You denied him due process. Remember, Jason, morality is a “process of negotiation,” right? It’s very disappointing to see you comport yourself in such a dictatorial and fascistic fashion in your dealings with Rhology.
iii) You also need to justify why anyone should accept your definition of morality in the first place. Telling us what you believe is not an argument.
“You said Nazi Germany satisfied my conditions for morality. Yet, Nazi Germany was not based upon the most rational arguments available. It does not meet my criteria.”
You’re adding ad hoc restrictions to your definition. The validity of a contract doesn’t depend on how rational it is. When the estate of Jackie Kennedy Onassis auctioned off various trinkets, some people paid ridiculous amounts of money for anything she owned—just because she owned it. But that doesn’t invalidate the contract.
“No, it need not make that assumption.”
That’s because you’re irrational, so you can’t think logically. If the parties to a contract didn’t have the right to enter into negotiations in the first place, then the contract is null and void.
So you need to justify, on social contract theory, how the parties have the right to negotiate. That right cannot be conferred by the social contract itself since, apart from the right to enter into negotiations, there would be no social contract.
“This is funny, because you and others here make continual reference to conscience as a guiding factor in your moralizing. What is conscience, if not the 'feel' of right and wrong?”
i) My you’re dull! Was my argument ever predicated on conscience or feelings? No. I was answering you on your own grounds. Moral properties are not empirical properties. The rightness or wrongness of an event is not an empirical property—unlike when or where it took place.
For example, the law acknowledges a moral distinction between murder and self-defense. But the two events may be empirically indistinguishable.
There’s nothing empirically observable about an evil event, unlike other empirical properties—such as the time of day.
ii) Moreover, I have not been making continuing reference to conscience as a moral guide. I haven’t made a single appeal to conscience as my moral guide. Learn how to read.
“What is conscience, if not the ‘feel’ of right and wrong?”
Irrelevant, since I didn’t use that argument.
“So, which is it? Do you deny that we can have feelings about what is right or wrong.”
Even if, for the sake of argument, I did appeal to conscience, conscience has a very different role in a Christian worldview than it does in a secular worldview.
In secularism, conscience would either be a result of social conditioning or a result of natural selection. Whichever source you attribute it to, that would not be morally normative.
By contrast, if you say that conscience is a God-given moral intuition, that would be more normative (if we bracket the noetic effects of sin).
“Or do you simply deny that such feelings can be manifest in a physical way?”
Has nothing to do with “feelings.” I was merely answering you on your own grounds. You said something is objectively right or wrong if it can be observed and measured.
But the moral quality of an act is unobservable and immeasurable. The act itself may be observable and measurable, but not the moral quality of an act.
How do you measure evil? In meters? Liters?
“I imagine you wish to claim that feelings cannot be physical.”
Once you make a mistake, you stick to it. My response had nothing to do with feelings.
“Such a claim is absurd for two reasons: first, because neuroscientists are making measurable progress in understanding just how feelings are produced by brains.”
False. All a neuroscientist can do is to note physical manifestations of the mind.
“Second, because you have yet to define what a non-physical existence would be or how it could be recognized as distinct from physical existence.”
You have yet to offer a noncircular definition of physicality.
“I measure the right or wrongness of an action by whether or not I want to live in a society where such actions are considered right or wrong.”
Which is purely subjective on your part. Yet you said you were going to offer an explanation for objective morality.
And your moral metric is incoherent since the kind of society you want to live in may be the opposite of the kind of society someone else wants to live in. A sadist wants to live in a sadistic society while a masochist wants to live in a masochist society.
“Would you like me to explain any other rudimentary concepts here?”
So you’re wimping out. You can’t begin to justify your appeal to the “best.”
“I’m not making any such assumptions.”
You said: “Morality is a process of deciding what is best for humanity and civilization.”
How does that differ from what is good for humanity? Do you draw a dichotomy between what is good and what is best? But the best is a variant of the good.
“I think humanity should exist and prosper, because I want myself and everyone I love to exist and proper.”
And what if a suicide bomber wants you and your loved ones to die. What makes your desire morally superior to his?
“If you don’t think humanity should survive or prosper, then we have a fundamental disagreement of values.”
Since you’re slow on the uptake, I’ll spell it out for you. I’m not stating my own position. I’m questioning you on the implications of your own position.
Can you furnish a secular justification for why you think humanity should survive and prosper?
“You say I ‘appealed’ to theological noncognotivism. Actually, no, I didn’t appeal to it. I argued for it. If you wish to address my arguments about that, feel free. It seems you do not want to address those arguments, however, because you chose instead to dismiss them as ‘just a warmed over version of the long discredited school of logical positivism.’__Either address my arguments, or don’t. But this kind of dismissal is clearly unwarranted.”
Which is exactly what I went on to do. Pay attention.
“Now, you wish to accuse me of ignorance, when in fact all you are doing is misreading my words.”
You make demonstrably ignorant statements about historical theology. I documented your ignorance.
“(You do that a lot, you know.)”
Because you make a lot of ignorant statements, you know.
“Yes, that’s right. I was talking about the apophatic tradition.”
Which is not representative of Christian theism as a whole. Yet you act as if it were when you dismiss Christian theism is toto on that basis.
“Good for you, Steve. But, Steve, you see, I never said that ALL theologians were apophatic.”
You hitched your wagon to theological noncognitivism. I’ll repeat your sweeping claims:
“The term ‘supernatural’ is meant to refer to that which cannot be observed or comprehended in any rational way. The supernatural cannot possibly be understood. Ever. By anyone.”
“Theologians for ages have known that the term ‘God’ is defined in a way that is impossible to understand. By recognizing the lack of coherence here, I am only pointing out what religious believers through the ages have willingly acknowledged. They have claimed that the inability to understand the meaning of the term ‘God’ is one of the main reasons why God must be embraced as a matter of faith.”
Here you make no attempt to distinguish between apophatic theology and cataphatic theology. And you used apophatic theology as a reason for hard atheism. But that would only follow if apophatic theology is the only form of Christian theism. You can’t argue for hard atheism from theological noncognitivism on the basis of cataphatic theology.
If all theologians are not apophatic theologians, then than undercuts you premise for theological noncognitivism and hard atheism.
“Your conclusion that my ‘historical claim is demonstrably ignorant and demonstrably false’ is demonstrably based on your demonstrable tendency to put words in my mouth.”
No, my tendency is to take your position to its logical extreme. I realize that’s distressing to someone as illogical as you are.
“That’s not a respectable habit you have there, Steve.”
You’re addiction to straw man arguments is not a respectable habit, Jason. Your illogicality is not a respectable habit, Jason.
“Next you ask me to explain why it is unintelligible or incoherent to think that God can instantiate any possible state of affairs. To answer that question, I’d first have to know what the term ‘God’ refers to. As I explained to Rhology, the term is defined in self-contradictory ways. E.g., God is defined to exist outside of space and time. This implies that God does not exist at all, because to exist is to persist over time. This is a contradiction.”
All you’ve done here is to beg the question against the existence of abstract objects. And you can only do so on pain of self-contradiction since you yourself appeal to possible worlds, which exist outside of space and time.
“Nowhere did I dismiss the Bible’s ethics solely on the grounds that it is an old book.”
That’s how you’ve been arguing all along.
“Steve, you are a liar. It’s shameful.”
“Shameful” is a moralistic value judgment. But you’re in no position of issue these unilateral condemnations. You need to “negotiate” that charge with a second party—me.
“I don’t see why any rational agent should be denied rights, no matter their cellular composition and no matter how they came to be. So, blindly programmed robot or not, it makes no difference to me.”
i) If an agent is “blindly programmed,” then in what sense is it acting rationally?
ii) Moreover, eliminative materialism denies consciousness.
iii) Furthermore, you’re using a very aprioristic argument for human rights. But rights are conferred by the social contract.
“Thus, your moralizing, for example, takes into account what you think is the most important conditions for guiding your moral principles: namely, ‘God’, the Bible, etc. So, you make reference to what is when you discuss what ought to be.”
You’re equivocating. A moral norm exists. It “is.” That doesn’t mean we’re inferring ought from is. Its bare existence is not what makes it a moral norm.
“And? You think this has some negative implications for my argument, Steve?”
Indeed it does.
“Steve, please . . . just try to think here.”
Jason, please…just try to think here.”
“The claim that altruism is a product of natural selection is not an ‘ought.’ It is an ‘is,’ just like the many ‘is’ statements you take into account when you approach your own convoluted undertanding of morality. And I am not confusing it for an ‘ought’ statement.”
So you’re admitting that we have no obligation to be altruistic.
“I am not saying that morality ought to be a product of natural selection. If I was making such a bizarre statement, then you might have a point. But since I’m not, your flailing about here is truly absurd.”
Pity you can’t keep up with your own side of the argument. I cited Richard Dawkins as an example of an atheist whose reductionistic view of human nature is unable to warrant human rights.
You took exception of my interpretation. You brought up altruism in relation to the selfish gene hypothesis. I was answering you back on your own terms.
If you now admit that the selfish gene hypothesis is inadequate to ground the normativity of altruism, then you concede my point about the moral inadequacy of evolutionary ethics.
“Ah, so if I try hard enough, I can condition myself to survive indefinitely without food or water? Wow. I didn’t know that.__Your insight is astounding, Steve. Really . . . this is impressive stuff.”
Wow. Your density is astounding, Jason. Really… this is impressive stuff.
Was I discussing what we need to do to survive? No. I was discussing whether an instinctual morality is morally normative.
What makes your reaction especially obtuse is that altruism can be quite antithetical to my personal survival. To survive, I’d have to resist my evolutionary conditioning to be altruistic in situations where altruism is detrimental to my self-interest.
“People are altruistic, at times, under certain conditions, because it is advantageous for the replication of their genes. This, of course, says nothing about whether or not being altruistic is good for you or anybody else you know. It only describes what has tended to be good for our genes.”
Which is irrelevant to whether we should be altruistic—especially if that comes into conflict with the survival of the individual in question. According to secular ethics, do we, or do we not have a duty to be altruistic?
In a lifeboat situation, is it permissible for me to murder my fellow passengers so that I won’t have to ration the food and water?
“So, why should people be altruistic? Game theorists have shown that a ‘tit for tat’ approach to cooperation tends to be very successful in certain populations. It is most likely the case that human beings have evolved so that we work best together when we demonstrate a certain amount of trust and mutual interest with other members of our communities.”
i) Of course, that doesn’t explain why people should be altruistic. At best, it would only explain why they are. So you’re back to the naturalistic fallacy.
ii) All you’ve said here is that it’s generally expedient to be altruistic. Do you think that sheer expediency is all that matters?
“In short, altruism makes sense, given the right conditions.”
And what about the wrong conditions? Back to the lifeboat. If it’s expedient for me to murder my fellow passengers, is that morally permissible?
“First of all, it isn’t at all clear that you do. So far, you’ve only defined the “mental realm” in negative terms, as something that cannot be quantified. Your definition would make abstract objects unquantifiable, and thus unknowable. I presume you don’t think mathematical objects, like numbers, are unquantifiable, do you?”
i) Wrong again. I pointed out that the moral properties of an event are unobservable and immeasurable. They are not empirical properties. The event itself doesn’t display its moral character.
You’re confusing what I said about physical events with abstract objects, which is pretty obtuse on your part.
ii) Mental properties include things like propositional attitudes and representational states. These have positive content.
“So your understanding of abstract objects is incoherent.”
So your understanding of my understanding is incoherent.
“My understanding is as follows: abstract objects are algorithms, like computer programs.”
Computer programs are physical. That has nothing to do with abstract objects, viz. possible worlds, infinite sets.
“Your view is that abstraction requires representation.”
I’m discussing abstract objects, not abstraction.
Abstract objects don’t require representations. Rather, some representations (e.g. a simulated display of the Mandelbrot set) presuppose abstract objects—of which the representation is a property-instance.
“And yet, neuroscientists have already made some headway into understanding just how the brain produces representations.”
i) You’re confusing the psychological process of abstraction with abstract objects. This betrays your ineptitude.
ii) You also make breezy assertions about neuroscience without bothering to interact with opposing evidence or opposing interpretations of the evidence.
iii) You’re also very selective in your appeal to naturalistic philosophies of the mind. Why not go all the way with eliminative materialism?
“You can deny this evidence, just like you deny the evidence in favor of evolutionary theory, of course.”
Because I’ve seen how Darwinians present the “evidence.”
“The phrase ‘possible world’ is an abstraction, an algorithm. You are confusing thoughts with reality. You do that a lot.”
As usual, you’re too shallow to appreciate the question at issue. If a possible world is merely a human thought, then what makes that thought true or false? Of what is a thought of a possible world true? What is the object or referent of the thought? What makes a counterfactual statement true or false?
“Sets are algorithms.”
As a rule, an algorithm is a series of finite instructions for completing a finite task. Even if your program a machine to calculate an infinite task, like computing the decimal expansion of pi, that is only potentially infinite and actually finite.
An algorithm is irrelevant to the ontology of an infinite set.
“You assume that every definable set corresponds to something beyond itself, something beyond the algoritm. That's a nonsensical view.”
No, what I assume is that every set must have all its members. An infinite set must have all its members. It’s a given totality.
You need to bone up on the concept of an actual infinite set in mathematics. This has been around since Cantor.
So, for example, an algorithm for simulating the Mandelbrot set is not the same thing as the Mandelbrot set itself.
“To see this, consider the following issue. You wish to assert that there is some abstract realm in which all of the infinite and transfinite numbers actually exist. And yet, Godel proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent. This means that, if there were some weird realm in which mathematics was complete, then that realm would contain internal contradictions.__How do you explain this?”
i) You’re confusing the limits of axiomatic proof (a la Hilbert) with the ontology of sets.
ii) You also don’t know very much about Gödel, who was a Platonic realist in his view of mathematical entities.
This is very confusing. Please edit the material because I have no idea who is speaking. Please put it in a format that is comprehensible.
ReplyDelete"an algorithm for simulating the Mandelbrot set is not the same thing as the Mandelbrot set itself."
ReplyDeleteSo just what *is* the "Mandelbrot set itself"?
Steve says I "don’t know very much about Gödel, who was a Platonic realist in his view of mathematical entities."
ReplyDeleteSteve shouldn't be so presumptuous. The fact is, I was well aware of Godel's Platonic realism. Fortunately for all of us, the validity of Godel's proofs are not dependent upon his problematic interpretation of reality.
So, about Godel's proofs . . .
Steve says I'm "confusing the limits of axiomatic proof (a la Hilbert) with the ontology of sets."
I don't think that's true.
Why, in Steve's view, is it impossible to formulate a complete and consistent set of mathematical axioms?
Why must a consistent mathematics remain incomplete?
The problem cannot be a matter of human limitations, because the proof is not about human beings. It is a proof, which means it holds universally, regardless of the limitations (or lack thereof) of the people computing it.
So, we have a proof that says, for all time, in all places, there cannot be a complete and consistent set of mathematical axioms.
Now, Steve wants to believe that mathematics exists, compelte and consistently, in some abstract realm.
How could that be possible?
Such a complete and consistent mathematics would have to have a complete and consistent set of axioms. That cannot be.
I am not confusing the issues here. Steve is denying the consequences of logic.
Steve says,
ReplyDelete"A social contract isn’t individualistic. Every individual isn’t free to negotiate or renegotiate the terms of the contract."
And yet, I wasn't talking about social contracts.
Next Steve says, "And if you do think [a social contract is] individualistic, then you violated your own principle when you said Rhology was “scum” without allowing him, as an individual, to bargain with you over the terms of your moralistic value judgment."
Steve apparently cannot see the difference between a moral judgment and a social contract.
Strange.
"Remember, Jason, morality is a 'process of negotiation,' right?"
Yes, a process aimed at finding the most justifiable position available.
"It’s very disappointing to see you comport yourself in such a dictatorial and fascistic fashion in your dealings with Rhology."
Lame-o.
I never said that all moral judgments need to be agreed upon by all involved members. Nothing I said implies that the object of a moral judgment needs to agree with said judgment.
The fact is, people often fail to respect the most justifiable position available to them; we are thus justified in making negative moral judgments about them, regardless of their agreement.
JEN H. SAID:
ReplyDelete"So just what *is* the 'Mandelbrot set itself?"
An abstract object.
Jason Streitfeld said...
ReplyDelete“And yet, I wasn't talking about social contracts.”
You were talking about value judgments (“Rhology is scum”), which you index to social contracts. Try to keep track of your own position, pitiful as that may be.
“Steve apparently cannot see the difference between a moral judgment and a social contract.”
Jason apparently can’t remember his own position. “Morality is a process of negotiation.”
“I never said that all moral judgments need to be agreed upon by all involved members. Nothing I said implies that the object of a moral judgment needs to agree with said judgment.”
So it didn’t matter what a Jewish minority thought of the Final Solution. The judgment of the majority rightly carried the day.
“The fact is, people often fail to respect the most justifiable position available to them; we are thus justified in making negative moral judgments about them, regardless of their agreement.”
Which invalidates your appeal to social contract theory.
Jason Streitfeld said...
ReplyDelete“Fortunately for all of us, the validity of Godel's proofs are not dependent upon his problematic interpretation of reality.”
I think that Gödel is a reasonable person to turn to interpret the implications of his own theorems.
“So, we have a proof that says, for all time, in all places, there cannot be a complete and consistent set of mathematical axioms.”
You’re confusing epistemology with ontology. Proof is an epistemic category.
“I am not confusing the issues here. Steve is denying the consequences of logic.”
Jason is simply ignorant.
“Now we come to Cantor’s astounding early achievement, namely his demonstration that there are indeed infinities strictly greater than Aleph 0, and that the cardinality of the set R of real numbers is such an infinity…its implications are extraordinarily far-reaching. Not only does it enable us to see that there are fundamentally more real numbers than there are natural numbers, but it also shows that there is no end to the hugeness of the possible infinite numbers. Moreover, in a slightly modified form, the argument shows that there is no computational way of deciding whether a general computation will ever come to an end (Turing), and a related consequences is Gödel’s famous incompleteness theorem which shows that no set of pre-assigned trustworthy mathematical rules can encapsulate all the procedures whereby mathematical truths are ascertained,” R. Penrose, The Road to Reality, 367-70.
Notice that Gödel’s theorem is a logical implication of infinite sets, not an argument against the infinite sets. Continuing:
“There is a common misconception that Gödel’s theorem tells us that there are ‘unprovable mathematical propositions,’ and that this implies that there are regions of the ‘Platonic world’ of mathematical truths (see §1.4) that are in principle inaccessible to us. This is very far from the conclusion that we should be drawing from Gödel’s theorem. What Gödel actually tells us is that whatever rules of proof we have laid down beforehand, if we already accept that those rules are trustworthy (i.e. that they do not allow us to derive falsehoods) and are not too limited, then we are provided with a new means of access to certain mathematical truths that those particular rules are not powerful enough to derive,” ibid. 377.
Forgive me if I take the world of a world-class mathematician and mathematical physicist over the word of a “non-professional philosopher” and ESL teacher.
For example, the law acknowledges a moral distinction between murder and self-defense. But the two events may be empirically indistinguishable.
ReplyDeleteIf they weren't distinguishable empirically there would be no basis on which to distinguish them legally (which is not the same as distinguishing them morally, either). The rest of your arguments are similarly groundless.
PAUL C SAID:
ReplyDelete"If they weren't distinguishable empirically there would be no basis on which to distinguish them legally (which is not the same as distinguishing them morally, either)."
Empirically indistinguishable acts can be legally/morally distinguishable at the level of motives. There are cases in which murder and justified homicide are empirically indistinguishable. The distinguishing factor is the motive of the respective parties, and motives are nonempirical.
There are cases in which murder and justified homicide are empirically indistinguishable. The distinguishing factor is the motive of the respective parties, and motives are nonempirical.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make any sense at all. We deduce motives from behaviour, which can be observed; therefore while the act itself might lead us to either conclusion, the circumstances surrounding the act would not. And this, of course, is what the legal or moral relies upon - the context, rather than the act itself.
One behavior can look the same when done with two different motives, right? How do you judge the difference?
ReplyDeleteSteve says I was "talking about value judgments (“Rhology is scum”), which [I] index to social contracts."
ReplyDeleteActually, Steve is the one who brought up social contracts here, not me.
What I said was that morality is a process of negotiation. Steve says this requires some kind of social contract, but that simply isn't true.
This should be clear if we consider how it might be that a social contract might be created in the first place. Steve would have us believe that a social contract between individuals cannot be established by a process of negotiation unless a social contract were already in place, because he thinks all processes of negotiation are predicated upon the existence of some social contract.
And yet, common sense tells us that individuals could negotiate a social contract without first having one.
Of course, if one defines the term "negotiations" to mean "contractual negotiations," then of course Steve would have a valid point. But I've been talking about negotiating moral judgments, not contracts. So if that is how Steve read me, he made a mistake.
david,
ReplyDeleteI think Paul C anwered that question. Context and circumstances can allow us to distinguish one's motive beyond a reasonable doubt. And when they don't, then we refrain judgment.
Of course, maybe one day we'll have neurological scanning equipment that will somehow allow us to read things like motives, but who knows?
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“Actually, Steve is the one who brought up social contracts here, not me.__What I said was that morality is a process of negotiation. Steve says this requires some kind of social contract, but that simply isn't true.”
Really? You’ve said that morality is a social convention (see below). Feel free to distinguish that position from social contract theory:
********************************************************
Authority is granted by convention, of course. The most rationally conceived authority is one most adapted to the needs of the community and most adaptive to the demands of reason. Morality is all a matter of justification, after all. So, a moral authority is a person or body of persons whose decisions on moral questions are respected within a community.
Atheists have such a moral authority: it is the decision-making processes within the community itself! You see, atheists respect the processes whereby moral questions are rationally argued. And whatever rational argument prevails is respected as authoritative. That is how moral questions are answered, and it is perfectly objective.
http://specterofreason.blogspot.com/2008/11/atheist-perspect-on-abortion-human.html
First of all, what's wrong with calling something a "social convention"? Social conventions are the learned rules and procedures which define people's roles and responsibilities in society. Social conventions are the stuff morality is made of, be they the product of rational thinking, intution, or instinct (and, of course, they are most likely to be a combination of all three).
http://specterofreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/haidt-crimes-in-defense-of-new-atheism.html
Steve says I'm "adding ad hoc restrictions to [my] definition" of morality by writing that morality aims towards "the most rational arguments available."
ReplyDeleteApparently, Steve thinks that when I claimed that morality was a process of negotiation, I was providing my definition of morality. That's not the case.
See, by explaining how I understand morality, I am approaching a definition, not adding ad hoc restrictions to a definition.
But Steve would rather find some tedious excuse to criticize me, rather than addressing the ideas that I present him, thus requiring that I waste all of our time with these rebuttals.
Steve says,
ReplyDelete"Was my argument ever predicated on conscience or feelings? No."
Does Steve thus reject the existence of conscience and feelings?
I'm on the edge of my seat in suspense!
Steve says, "There’s nothing empirically observable about an evil event, unlike other empirical properties—such as the time of day."
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Steve decides whether or not an action was evil. I mean, if whatever made the event evil wasn't empirically observable, then how did the evilness get communicated to him?
He just felt the evil when the planes struck the World Trade Center?
Didn't he have to see the planes striking? Didn't he have to factor in other empirically-based facts?
Wasn't his ability to judge the 9.11 attacks wholly dependent upon empirical evidence?
Of course it was.
But Steve says, no, nothing about an evil event is empirically determinable. So, if we want to call the attack on the World Trade Center evil, we cannot base our judgment on anything we've observed with our senses.
That, apparently, is Steve's position.
I wonder, then, what we are supposed to go by?
What can Steve point to that allows him to say that anything at all is evil?
Nothing, of course, because if he could point to it, it would be empirically observable.
Steve cannot offer any evidence for his moral judgments. For, evidence would be empirically observable.
Where does that leave us?
With a man who claims that his ability to make moral judgments is superior to mine, but who cannot provide one shred of evidence to support a single one of his moral judgments . . . unless, of course, he wants to contradict himself. If he wants to do that, he can produce all the evidence in the world.
Steve says,
ReplyDelete"You’ve said that morality is a social convention (see below)."
Yes, Steve is right, morality is a matter of social convention. But that does not mean all morality is dependent upon a social contract.
Again, how is the first contract to be established, if not by a process of negotiation? That first process is a process of negotiation, of moralizing, of justifying a value judgment.
So, while social convention is the stuff morality is made of, the possibility of morality does not presuppose an pre-existing social contract.
Paul C said...
ReplyDelete“That doesn't make any sense at all. We deduce motives from behaviour, which can be observed; therefore while the act itself might lead us to either conclusion, the circumstances surrounding the act would not. And this, of course, is what the legal or moral relies upon - the context, rather than the act itself.”
We would only limit ourselves to deducing motives from behavior if we were B. F. Skinner. But behavioral psychology has never been a presupposition of the law.
Motives involve a private, first-person perspective, not a public third-person perspective.
We try to ascertain the motives of someone is two different ways:
i) By asking the individual why he did it.
ii) By analogizing from our own motives (if we were in the same situation) to his motives.
This is how we operate in actual practice.
It doesn’t “make any sense to you” become it conflicts with your attempt to reduce all knowledge to a scientific paradigm of knowledge.
Jason Streitfeld said...
“Context and circumstances can allow us to distinguish one's motive beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Obviously not, since two people can perform the same action for different reasons.
Appealing to context and circumstances is insufficient unless you what personal significance these factors hold for the agent. So, once again, you have to go beyond the externalities. Different people may attach a different personal significance to the same situation. The same situation may not mean the same thing to two different people.
Steve says,
ReplyDelete"All a neuroscientist can do is to note physical manifestations of the mind."
So, minds can be manifest if physical reality?
Kind of like the way an apple can be manifest in physical reality?
So, minds and apples are equally physical, then?
Hey, Steve's a physicalist.
Cool.
Jason Streitfeld said...
ReplyDelete“Does Steve thus reject the existence of conscience and feelings?__I'm on the edge of my seat in suspense!”
I hope you have a well-padded seat since you’re going to be sitting there for a long time. Your question is irrelevant to my argument. Therefore, I refuse to play into your diversionary tactics.
Steve asks,
ReplyDelete"And what if a suicide bomber wants you and your loved ones to die. What makes your desire morally superior to his?"
This is the common line: "Why should your values be any more important than anyone else's?"
They are more important to some, less important to others.
But I'm not saying anyone's values are necessarily more important than anyone's elses. Rather, I'm saying that our ability to weigh values as such is part of how morality is approached.
Now, somebody might decide to bomb an abortion clinic, and they might think they are morally justified in that. Others disagree.
Steve wants there to be a final answer, a word from on high, which can remove all possibility of disagreement over who was right or wrong.
Yet, Steve rejects the requirement that we support our answers with evidence.
In embracing evidence, I am embracing rationality. That means embracing the fact that we have no observable, demonstrable "word from on high" to remove all doubt for us.
Indeed, that "word" seems to produce as much disagreement as agreement. As far as a tool for negotiating values and finding a stable foundation for society, I'd say any method that rejects the very possibility of evidence is extraordinarily dangerous.
I think I've asked this before, but the answer seems to have been lost to the archives. Is there any meaningful difference between materialism, physicalism, and naturalism? They all seem to amount to "ixnay on the supernatural/paranormal", but for all I know it may be more nuanced than that.
ReplyDelete"So, minds can be manifest if physical reality?
ReplyDeleteKind of like the way an apple can be manifest in physical reality?
So, minds and apples are equally physical, then?
Hey, Steve's a physicalist.
Cool."
Good grief, you're obtuse. Who helps you tie your shoes every morning?
Steve is saying that some effects of the mind can be physical (bioelectric emmittances, chemical reactions, etc.) NOT that the mind itself is physical. Yet it's only these things that a neuroscientist can observe...they're incapable of studying the immaterial aspect of the mind. THAT was Steve's point which seemed to just sail right over your head.
And these are the people that call themselves "brights". Wow.
Steve says,
ReplyDelete"Appealing to context and circumstances is insufficient unless you [know] what personal significance these factors hold for the agent. So, once again, you have to go beyond the externalities."
A reasonable interpretation of the situation is that one uses context to indirectly draw conclusions about what was going on in a person's brain.
Steve's assertion is that the brain is actually manifesting a mind, and that the mind is not physical. (Of course, it seems that he actually thinks the mind is physical, as I recently noted.)
So, the only difference between my perspective is that Steve regards the brain in contradictory terms: as simultaneously manifesting a mind and as being of a different substance than the mind.
There's another problem with Steve's argument. He denies the ability to draw conclusions about a person's motive based on context and circumstance. He says this is because "two people can perform the same action for different reasons."
Yet, he says we can "put ourselves in their shoes," so to speak. How can we, if their reasons might be totally different than how we would act if we were "in their shoes?"
Steve's contradicting himself again here. He says he can put himself in somebody else's shoes, but he denies that we can know what another person's motives are.
It would seem that Steve has no justification for making any legal or moral decisions about another person's motives.
This is what happens when you reject the very possibility of evidence.
Mathetes,
ReplyDelete"Is there any meaningful difference between materialism, physicalism, and naturalism? They all seem to amount to "ixnay on the supernatural/paranormal", but for all I know it may be more nuanced than that."
For a lot of philosophers today, I think they're the same. For me, they amount to the same thing. They have different traditions, however, and different terms tend to be associated with different topics. E.g., "physicalism" is more often used in the philosophy of mind, I think.
Semper Reformanda is apparently out of work, and he's looking for a job helping people tie their shoes. Apparently, his sales pitch is, "Good grief, you're obtuse. Who helps you tie your shoes every morning?"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I'm not so easily taken in by these manipulative marketing strategies. No, you can sell your toe-tying services somewhere else, buddy.
Semper says,
ReplyDelete"Steve is saying that some effects of the mind can be physical (bioelectric emmittances, chemical reactions, etc.) NOT that the mind itself is physical."
Are you sure you have the authority to speak for Steve on this issue? Maybe you're right, of course, but I can't take your word for it, unless Steve signs over power of attorney.
But, let's say you're right, and Steve's point was that a "manifestation" of the mind is just an "effect" of the mind.
So, skin cancer is a manifestation of the sun, and the LA riots were a manifestation of the Rodney King incident.
Yes, maybe you're right, and Steve's use of the word "manifestation" is utterly contrary to the general usage. But, again, I'll have to wait and see if Steve signs on to that.
Semper says,
"Yet it's only these things that a neuroscientist can observe ... they're incapable of studying the immaterial aspect of the mind."
Oh, wait. So now you're not talking about "effects" of the mind. You're talking about "aspects" of the mind.
Which one did Steve mean?
Let's say it really was "aspects," since that's the last one you said. Okay, so some aspects of the mind are material, and some are immaterial. Is that right?
So, the mind is only partly physical, yes?
Would that make Steve a semi-physicalist?
Please tell us which aspects of the mind Steve thinks are physical, and which he thinks are not.
Steve apparently wants to avoid dealing with the arguments for theolgoical noncognitivism.
ReplyDeleteSteve says, "If all theologians are not apophatic theologians, then than undercuts you premise for theological noncognitivism and hard atheism."
My argument for theological noncognitivism was never based on the tradition of apophatic theology. I merely cited that tradition as evidence that my position here has a historical tradition which has been embraced by many religious believers.
My argument for theological noncognitivism is based on the premise that a coherent definition for "God" and "the supernatural" has yet to be obtained.
Steve, where's your coherent definition?
Steve says I "beg the question against the existence of abstract objects."
ReplyDeleteNot true. I don't deny the existence of abstract objects. I regard abstract objects as algorithms. This isn't news.
Steve apparently thinks abstract objects are something else. But he won't say what.
Apparently, abstract objects are things that can be directly observed by the mind. That's how they're different from physical reality, right Steve?
What's a mind, in Steve's view?
Probably another abstract object.
(Of course, we're not sure if Steve thinks the mind is more or less as physical as an apple at this point, so we have to be careful here.)
So, Mandelbrot's set can be directly experienced by the mind. The algorithm, however, is physical.
I wonder, what does it feel like to directly experience the Mandelbrot set. Can Steve tell us about that mental experience?
Is it kind of like the experience of unicorns and the tooth fairy? (Those, I presume, are also abstract objects in Steve's ontology.)
Steve quotes Roger Penrose:
ReplyDelete"There is a common misconception that Gödel’s theorem tells us that there are ‘unprovable mathematical propositions,’ and that this implies that there are regions of the ‘Platonic world’ of mathematical truths (see §1.4) that are in principle inaccessible to us."
Interesting. I, of course, never made such a claim. My argument is that, if there cannot be a complete and consistent set of mathematical axioms, then there cannot be a complete and consistent mathematics.
Penrose continues, a la Steve's quotation:
"This is very far from the conclusion that we should be drawing from Gödel’s theorem."
Okay. I didn't draw the first conclusion, so I'm with you here.
"What Gödel actually tells us is that whatever rules of proof we have laid down beforehand, if we already accept that those rules are trustworthy (i.e. that they do not allow us to derive falsehoods) and are not too limited, then we are provided with a new means of access to certain mathematical truths that those particular rules are not powerful enough to derive."
Um, nope, I'm not going to take Penrose's word for that.
For one thing, we shouldn't ignore Godel's own statement, here: "any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete." Source: Wikipedia
For another thing, Penrose's appropriation of Godel is controversial, to say the least. His reading of Godel here is by no means standard.
Yet, Steve says he'd rather take Penrose's word over mine. Well, I'm not asking anyone to take my word for anything. I'm presenting arguments which should be judged according to their merits, not my status as an authority figure.
So, again, how is it that mathematics cannot have a complete and consistent set of axioms, and yet exist in all its complete and consistent glory in Steve's (yet-to-be-defined) abstract realm?
We try to ascertain the motives of someone is two different ways
ReplyDeleteLet's remember how this particular thread of the discussion started, shall we? You said:
For example, the law acknowledges a moral distinction between murder and self-defense.
The law does indeed do so, and it does so on a purely empirical basis. Judges and juries don't sit around pontificating in the abstract about the motives of the defendant; they hear evidence and then make a decision. This is an empirical process.
It doesn’t “make any sense to you” become it conflicts with your attempt to reduce all knowledge to a scientific paradigm of knowledge.
Wow, you must be one of those magic mind-reading Christians we've been hearing about in the news recently. Unfortunately for you, I don't think all knowledge reduces to a scientific paradigm, nor do I think the scientific method is anything more than one tool for understanding amongst many. Back to psychic school for you, Steve!
Apologies for posting this in this thread but since no one makes their email address available, I cannot directly ask for comments.
ReplyDeleteTriabloggers, what do you see as the apologetics implications of this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3512686/Children-are-born-believers-in-God-academic-claims.html
Do you see it as slightly favouring theism?
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“This is the common line: ‘Why should your values be any more important than anyone else's?’__They are more important to some, less important to others.__But I'm not saying anyone's values are necessarily more important than anyone's elses. Rather, I'm saying that our ability to weigh values as such is part of how morality is approached.”
Jason is so dishonest that when he gets himself into a bind, he misrepresents his own position.
What was I responding to? To statements of his like this:
“I measure the right or wrongness of an action by whether or not I want to live in a society where such actions are considered right or wrong.”
“I think humanity should exist and prosper, because I want myself and everyone I love to exist and proper.”
So he grounds moral values in his personal feelings, and he measures moral values by his personal feelings.
It was in response to this sort of argument that I asked: "And what if a suicide bomber wants you and your loved ones to die. What makes your desire morally superior to his?”
What makes Jason’s feelings morally superior to the feelings of a suicide bomber?
“Steve wants there to be a final answer, a word from on high, which can remove all possibility of disagreement over who was right or wrong.”
Most human beings are theists. Suppose all the theists pass a law making atheism is a capital offense.
Does Jason think that law would be unjust? But he’s in no position to say it’s unjust without removing all possible disagreement over who was right or wrong in the passage of the law.
“Yet, Steve rejects the requirement that we support our answers with evidence.”
Quote me saying that.
“In embracing evidence, I am embracing rationality. That means embracing the fact that we have no observable, demonstrable ‘word from on high’ to remove all doubt for us.”
i) That’s in assertion in lieu of an argument.
ii) Needless to say, observable and demonstrable are not interchangeable concepts. Mathematical proof isn’t based on observable evidence (to take one example).
“Kind of like the way an apple can be manifest in physical reality?”
If you think an apple is “manifested” in physical reality, then you’re a dualist. The physical manifestation would be a concrete property-instance of an abstract property.
Hey, Jason’s a dualist.
Cool.
“A reasonable interpretation of the situation is that one uses context to indirectly draw conclusions about what was going on in a person's brain.”
Not unless you know what the “context” means to the individual in question. You can’t get that from the context itself.
You and I look at the same man. But we don’t attach the same significance to what we see because the man is my dad while he’s a perfect stranger to you.
In addition, I might have affectionate feelings, hostile feelings, or mixed feelings about my dad. You can’t tell what he means to me by externals alone.
“So, the only difference between my perspective is that Steve regards the brain in contradictory terms: as simultaneously manifesting a mind and as being of a different substance than the mind.”
Jason is too ignorant of dualism to even grasp the implications of dualism. What a dunce. A textbook case of self-reinforcing ignorance.
“Steve's contradicting himself again here. He says he can put himself in somebody else's shoes, but he denies that we can know what another person's motives are.”
Once again, Jason is as dumb as straw. Did I say we can’t know what another person’s motives are? No.
I said that we can’t know another person’s motives from behavior alone.
We know what it’s like to be human from the inside out, not the outside in. That supplies a frame of reference.
Also, I didn’t say if we “know.” I said we “try to ascertain” their movies on the basis of analogy and their own testimony.
“Steve apparently wants to avoid dealing with the arguments for theolgoical noncognitivism.”
I already did. Try again.
“My argument for theological noncognitivism is based on the premise that a coherent definition for ‘God’ and ‘the supernatural’ has yet to be obtained.”
Another example in which he misrepresents his own position when he gets himself into a bind.
Jason attributed apophatic definitions to theists, and then he used that attribution to justify your charge of theological noncognitivism. I’ll repeat what he said:
“The term ‘supernatural’ is meant to refer to that which cannot be observed or comprehended in any rational way. The supernatural cannot possibly be understood. Ever. By anyone.”
“Theologians for ages have known that the term ‘God’ is defined in a way that is impossible to understand. By recognizing the lack of coherence here, I am only pointing out what religious believers through the ages have willingly acknowledged. They have claimed that the inability to understand the meaning of the term ‘God’ is one of the main reasons why God must be embraced as a matter of faith.”
“Steve, where's your coherent definition?”
Jason, where’s your evidence that my definition is incoherent?
“Steve apparently thinks abstract objects are something else. But he won't say what.”
I’ve quoted extensively from Penrose and Pruss to illustrate my contention.
“Apparently, abstract objects are things that can be directly observed by the mind.”
No, they can be intuited by the mind.
“That's how they're different from physical reality, right Steve?”
Once again, Jason can’t tell the difference between ontology and epistemology.
The fact that a different mode of knowledge is involved is not what makes them different. Rather, it’s because they’re different that a different mode of knowledge is involved.
“What's a mind, in Steve's view?”
For starters, read my quotes from Lowe on mental properties.
“Probably another abstract object.”
Depends on the mind. The mind of God is atemporal and aspatial while the mind of man is temporal but aspatial.
“I wonder, what does it feel like to directly experience the Mandelbrot set.”
Great mathematicians rely on mathematical intuition. That’s how mathematically discovery works.
“Is it kind of like the experience of unicorns and the tooth fairy?”
Jason is welcome to make a fool of himself by mocking the nature of mathematical intuition. But this is well-documented phenomenon if you read about great mathematicians (e.g. Poincaré, Cohen, Wiles).
And if he did any serious reading in the field of metaphysics, he’d also realize that the issue of what fictional entities (e.g. unicorns) refer to is not a silly question, but a very deep question.
“I wonder how Steve decides whether or not an action was evil. I mean, if whatever made the event evil wasn't empirically observable, then how did the evilness get communicated to him?”
We apply our knowledge of good and evil to evil events. It’s something we bring to the event.
“He just felt the evil when the planes struck the World Trade Center?__Didn't he have to see the planes striking? Didn't he have to factor in other empirically-based facts?__Wasn't his ability to judge the 9.11 attacks wholly dependent upon empirical evidence?”
With Jason, the more he talks the dumber he sounds.
There’s an elementary difference between an evil event qua event, and an evil event qua evil. Between something that happens, and something that happens to be evil.
The identification of an event is generally empirical (whether through direct observation or testimony). But the identification of an event as evil is not empirical.
When I see planes hit buildings, all I see are planes hitting buildings. The moral properties of the event are not sensible properties.
If I were a Martian, visiting the earth for the first time, I wouldn’t conclude that 9/11 was an evil event.
To conclude that 9/11 was an evil event, you have to place it within a larger framework. You need to know something about the victims. Something about the motives of the terrorists. And you need to know the difference between murder and justifiable homicide. This goes beyond bare observation.
Watching planes hit buildings doesn’t, of itself, tell me who, if anyone, is to blame. What if the pilots were waging a just war? What if the buildings were concealed military installations?
“But Steve says, no, nothing about an evil event is empirically determinable.”
Of course he rips this statement out of context. The question at issue is whether the identification of an event as evil is empirically discernible.
And even in his selective quotation, I went on to say that an evil event does have empirical properties—such as the time of day.
What it doesn’t have are empirically discernible moral properties. Watching people die doesn’t tell you if they died justly or unjustly. That requires a moral frame of reference which is not reducible to physics.
“My argument is that, if there cannot be a complete and consistent set of mathematical axioms, then there cannot be a complete and consistent mathematics.”
You’re confusing human systems of mathematics with the mathematical objects that such systems attempt to capture.
“For one thing, we shouldn't ignore Gödel’s own statement, here: "any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete."
If you don’t think we should ignore Gödel, then we shouldn’t ignore the fact that Gödel was a Platonic realist.
“I'm presenting arguments which should be judged according to their merits, not my status as an authority figure.”
You have no competence to be presenting your own arguments about the foundations of mathematics or Gödel’s theorem. You have a “B.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies.” You also bill yourself as a philosophy dropout.
Here’s an idea: why don’t you email Penrose and run your “arguments” by him. See if he responds. Then post your correspondence.
“In Steve's (yet-to-be-defined) abstract realm?”
Just because you’re too slow to keep up with the documentation doesn’t mean I haven’t supplied it.
PAUL C SAID:
ReplyDelete“The law does indeed do so, and it does so on a purely empirical basis. Judges and juries don't sit around pontificating in the abstract about the motives of the defendant; they hear evidence and then make a decision. This is an empirical process.”
To the contrary, establishing the criminal intent (mens rea) of the accused is a basic element of criminal prosecution. And that is not a purely empirical process—since the defendant's state of mind is not observable.
Steve says:
ReplyDeleteTo the contrary, establishing the criminal intent (mens rea) of the accused is a basic element of criminal prosecution. And that is not a purely empirical process—since the defendant's state of mind is not observable.
The laws says:
A court or jury, in determining whether a person has committed an offence,—
(a) shall not be bound in law to infer that he intended or foresaw a result of his actions by reason only of its being a natural and probable consequence of those actions; but
(b) shall decide whether he did intend or foresee that result by reference to all the evidence, drawing such inferences from the evidence as appear proper in the circumstances.
(Determination of Criminal Intention, Section 8 Criminal Justice Act 1967, my emphasis)
So for slow readers, here's the short version: criminal intent is not decided by logical inference (as Steve seems to think), but by using evidence as a basis - an empirical process.
It's okay to admit to ignorance, Steve; nobody will think any less of you for simply not knowing. What will make people think less of you is if you keep pretending to be an expert in fields in which you are clearly not.
Notice that Paul C. arbitrarily equates evidence with "empirical" evidence.
ReplyDeleteIt's okay to admit to your philosophical naivete, Paul; nobody will think any less of you for simply not knowing. What will make people think less of you is if you keep pretending to be an expert in fields in which you are clearly not.
MATHETES SAID:
ReplyDelete"I think I've asked this before, but the answer seems to have been lost to the archives. Is there any meaningful difference between materialism, physicalism, and naturalism? They all seem to amount to "ixnay on the supernatural/paranormal", but for all I know it may be more nuanced than that."
Physicalism is a modern synonym for materialism. Both are monistic metaphysical positions, according to which the physical is all there is.
Metaphysical naturalism is an essentially negative position—defined by its exclusion of the supernatural.
But unlike physicalism, naturalism allows for dualism. It's not inherently monistic.
Thanks Steve and Jason for your answers.
ReplyDeleteA further question, though, if I may...if naturalism denies the supernatural and/or paranormal, then in what way does it allow for dualism? Does it posit a mind that is material instead of immaterial?
Thanks for any help.
Notice that Paul C. arbitrarily equates evidence with "empirical" evidence.
ReplyDeleteNotice that you haven't actually answered my point.
PAUL C SAID:
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing for me to answer since your point assumes what it needs to prove—that we can determine motives on a purely empirical basis.
You've asserted that, but you've furnished no argument. Motives involve private states of mind. Any attempt to ascertain motives will go beyond empirical resources.
Mathetes said...
ReplyDelete"A further question, though, if I may...if naturalism denies the supernatural and/or paranormal, then in what way does it allow for dualism? Does it posit a mind that is material instead of immaterial?"
It posits a platonic realm of abstract universal which aren't mental or material, but are timeless and spaceless.
This is a problematic tertium quid, but it's the best that a secularist can do with his limited metaphysical resources.
By contrast, a Christian will embed abstracta in a timeless mind (the mind of God).
There is nothing for me to answer since your point assumes what it needs to prove—that we can determine motives on a purely empirical basis.
ReplyDeleteNo, it assumes no such thing. You said:
For example, the law acknowledges a moral distinction between murder and self-defense. But the two events may be empirically indistinguishable.
To which I replied:
If they weren't distinguishable empirically there would be no basis on which to distinguish them legally (which is not the same as distinguishing them morally, either).
You now claim that:
You've asserted that, but you've furnished no argument. Motives involve private states of mind. Any attempt to ascertain motives will go beyond empirical resources.
My argument is clear enough for those who want to understand. It is simply this: I challenge you to explain how a court of law would ascertain the motives of an individual in any given situation without relying on empirical process, i.e. "relying on or derived from observation or experiment".
Steve,
ReplyDelete"You’re confusing human systems of mathematics with the mathematical objects that such systems attempt to capture."
No, Steve. Godel's proof does not specify anything about "human systems."
Steve says, "If you don’t think we should ignore Gödel, then we shouldn’t ignore the fact that Gödel was a Platonic realist."
Am I the only one here who sees a difference between regarding the implications of a proven theorem and disregarding irrelevant and problematic philosophical assumptions made by the person who first formulated the theorem?
About the definition of the word "God," Steve asks:
ReplyDelete"Jason, where’s your evidence that my definition is incoherent?"
What definition, Steve? I've responded to those definitions presented to me. Where's yours?
All you've said is that God's mind is aspatial and atemporal. Should we regard God and God's mind as two distinct entities?
Should we regard God (or God's mind) as having an active involvement in what happens in space and time? That is, does God (or God's mind) react to spatio-temporal events, or does it remain unchanged?
If it remains unchanged, then how could it interact with spatiotemporal events?
If it does not remain unchanged, then how can it change without those changes occuring in time and space?
Time is measured as a matter of change, after all. If there is change, there is time.
The lack of coherence in your definition of "God" is apparent. Of course, you are free to elaborate upon your understanding of God here. But so far, I don't see a coherent concept on the table.
Mathetes,
ReplyDelete"if naturalism denies the supernatural and/or paranormal, then in what way does it allow for dualism? Does it posit a mind that is material instead of immaterial?"
Two points here:
First, it is slightly misleading to say that naturalism simply "denies" the supernatural and/or paranormal. Naturalism rejects the incoherence of the natural/supernatural distinction (and the normal/paranormal distinction).
Second: Don't be taken in by Steve's assertion that naturalists must embrace Platonic dualism. Most naturalists do not embrace dualism.
We can regard minds as processes in physical systems, much the way digestion is a process in the human body.
PAUL C SAID [quoting me]: “There is nothing for me to answer since your point assumes what it needs to prove—that we can determine motives on a purely empirical basis.”
ReplyDeletePaul C: “No, it assumes no such thing.”
Hays: Of course it does. You’ve made that explicit claim on several occasions now—appealing to empiricism as the only way to determine motives.
Paul C: “You now claim that: ‘You've asserted that, but you've furnished no argument. Motives involve private states of mind. Any attempt to ascertain motives will go beyond empirical resources’.”
Hays: “Now” claim? No, that’s been my argument all along. Motives are private mental states, involving privileged access.
Paul C: “I challenge you to explain how a court of law would ascertain the motives of an individual in any given situation without relying on empirical process.”
Hays: For someone who’s so big on empiricism, you’re not very observant or attentive. You’d make a lousy juror.
I already addressed the question some time ago:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/11/secular-scumbags.html#3990737697006000772
I said, "Steve rejects the requirement that we support our answers with evidence."
ReplyDeleteSteve challenges me to quote him saying that.
Here are the relevant quotes:
First, Steve says, "There are cases in which murder and justified homicide are empirically indistinguishable. The distinguishing factor is the motive of the respective parties, and motives are nonempirical."
To elaborate on this point, Steve said, "Motives involve a private, first-person perspective, not a public third-person perspective."
So, in order to draw conclusions about a person's motives, we cannot rely on public, third-person information.
Since we're talking about legal decisions here, the relevant definition of "evidence" is the legal one:
"data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects." (source)
Clearly, in legal terms, evidence must be presentable to a court or jury. That means it must be third-person information.
Thus, Steve rejects the requirement that we support our legal answers with evidence.
Perhaps Steve wants to draw a distinction here. Maybe he wants to concede the argument about legal decisions, and talk instead about non-legal moral judgments about motives.
Maybe Steve thinks we can judge a person's motives with some other kind of evidence, some non-empirical evidence.
What counts as non-empirical evidence in Steve's book, then?
He has referred to intuition when talking about how mathematicians work. (Not like intuition is peculiar to mathematics, of course). So, maybe he thinks that intuition tells us when something is evil or not.
He cannot be sure what is in a person's mind. Even if he asks them, they could lie. So he must go on intuition.
Of course, people often disagree about whether or not something is evil. Our intuitions don't seem to match up a lot of the time. Does this mean that some people are simply good, and some are simply evil?
In that case, by what right does Steve have to presume that he is good and that another person is evil?
On what basis can he justify his intuitive judgments about evilness?
Where are Steve's grounds for moral superiority?
Steve says, "Mathematical proof isn’t based on observable evidence (to take one example)."
ReplyDeleteShow me a mathematical proof that is not observable, please.
Show me any instance in which an unobservable mathematical proof has been accepted.
Steve says, "If you think an apple is “manifested” in physical reality, then you’re a dualist. The physical manifestation would be a concrete property-instance of an abstract property."
ReplyDeleteThat's only if you beg the question and assume that everything that exists is a physical manifestation of a Platonic form.
But as I keep showing, there is no reason to make this assumption, and the implications of the assumption are problematic.
Steve's use of the term "manifest" is itself quite problematic.
Consider: Steve refers to the brain's "physical manifestations of the mind." In Steve's view, this means that brains are physical versions of abstract entities, called "minds."
Now, steve will also tell you that an apple is a physical manifestation of an abstract apple. So, again, the physical apple is a manifestation of an abstract entity, namely, an apple.
Now, unless Steve has invented a new term for an abstract apple (perhaps he calls them "abapples"), Steve uses one word here: "apple."
But now Steve uses two words when it comes to the mind. First there's the physical brain. Then there's the mind.
This is confusing.
If the brain is just one physical instance of a mind, then why not admit that a person's mind is actually occuring in their brain?
Isn't that the same as saying that a person's apple is actually occuring in their fruit basket?
No, Steve wants his mind to be somewhere else. The logic of his position does not seem to be on his side, however.
Steve says I "have no competence to be presenting [my] own arguments about the foundations of mathematics or Gödel’s theorem."
ReplyDeleteHis justification for deeming me incompetent? The fact that my undergraduate degree is in Literary and Cultural Studies, and that I did not complete my graduate studies in Philosophy.
Right, because after all, anybody who decides that they can learn a whole lot more about a subject outside of academia must not be able to present a valid argument about that subject.
Indeed.
Here's Steve misrepresenting my arguments again:
ReplyDelete"Jason attributed apophatic definitions to theists,"
More specifically, I referred to the apophatic tradition. I did not attribute apophatic definitions to theists in general.
"and then he used that attribution to justify your charge of theological noncognitivism."
No, I didn't, and I already explained that I didn't. Now Steve just won't accept the truth.
The fact is, I have yet to see anyone define "the supernatural" or "God" in a way that makes sense.
It's an open challenge to all of you: put a definition of the word "God" on the table, and let's see if we can make heads or tails of it.
Any takers?
Steve says that he has defined what the term "abstract realm" refers to.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone point me to it?
(Hint: You can search for "abstract realm" and similar phrases on this page and the other page where Steve and I have been discussing this. See what you find.)
Mathetes and Steve,
ReplyDeleteI must apologize, my response to Mathetes' last question was erroneous. Steve was explaining why, in his view, a naturalist could still be a dualist. I responded as though he were claiming that naturalists must be dualists.
It was an error . . . careless . . . you think God will have mercy on my soul?
Steve says, "We know what it’s like to be human from the inside out, not the outside in."
ReplyDeleteThat's half true, and half false.
We know what it's like to be human from the inside out and from the oustide in. Our understanding of humanity is not just based on introspection, but also on observation. We understand ourselves by understanding those around us, and vice versa.
Steve is only looking at half the picture.
Steve also says that the "mind of man" is "aspatial."
ReplyDeleteSteve's evidence for this?
So far, he's said that the mind has physical manifestations in the brain. Are these physical manifestations aspatial, in Steve's view? Probably not.
Of course it does. You’ve made that explicit claim on several occasions now—appealing to empiricism as the only way to determine motives.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't claim that empiricism is the only way to determine motives. What I claim is that it's the way in which motive is determined in a court of law, which is what we are discussing. I have supported this with an example of the law as it relates to ascertaining criminal intent, a piece of evidence which (ironically) you have chosen to completely ignore.
I already addressed the question some time ago
Yes, I agree that you tried to address the question, but all you offered were statements that support my point, not yours. Let's take a trip down memory lane:
We try to ascertain the motives of someone is two different ways:
i) By asking the individual why he did it.
ii) By analogizing from our own motives (if we were in the same situation) to his motives.
The first approach is purely empirical; the second approach is also empirical, since it relies entirely on one's observation of the situation. In a court of law, one is presented with evidence upon which one must base judgement - an empirical process. So I continue to ask you to answer a simple question:
How would a court of law ascertain the motives of an individual in any given situation without relying on empirical process?
So far, you have failed to explain your alternative to the empirical processes currently employed in our legal systems. I can only assume that your decision to ignore the piece of evidence that I provided - of how legal systems actually work - is somehow connected to your belief that you have a superior alternative.
How would a court of law ascertain the motives of an individual in any given situation without relying on empirical process?
ReplyDeletePreviously in the thread this response was offered:
steve:
We try to ascertain the motives of someone is two different ways:
i) By asking the individual why he did it.
ii) By analogizing from our own motives (if we were in the same situation) to his motives.
To which PaulC responded:
Judges and juries don't sit around pontificating in the abstract about the motives of the defendant; they hear evidence and then make a decision. This is an empirical process.
I don't think you've yet dealt with the two examples steve provided. If you did then my apologies for missing it.
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“No, Steve. Godel's proof does not specify anything about ‘human systems’."
Naturally, since that’s your distinction, not his.
“Am I the only one here who sees a difference between regarding the implications of a proven theorem and disregarding irrelevant and problematic philosophical assumptions made by the person who first formulated the theorem?”
To say they’re irrelevant and problematic is just another question-begging assertion on your part.
“What definition, Steve? I've responded to those definitions presented to me. Where's yours?”
I gave an example, using the divine attribute of omnipotence—which you ignored.
There’s no point expanding my definition when you ignore what you’ve already been told.
“All you've said is that God's mind is aspatial and atemporal. Should we regard God and God's mind as two distinct entities?”
God is a mental being.
“Should we regard God (or God's mind) as having an active involvement in what happens in space and time? That is, does God (or God's mind) react to spatio-temporal events, or does it remain unchanged?”
It remains unchanged.
“If it remains unchanged, then how could it interact with spatiotemporal events?”
It doesn’t interact with “spatiotemporal events” (a bit redundant on your part since an event is inherently temporal).
Rather, it enacts spatiotemporal events.
“If it does not remain unchanged, then how can it change without those changes occuring in time and space?__Time is measured as a matter of change, after all. If there is change, there is time.__The lack of coherence in your definition of ‘God’ is apparent.”
What’s apparent is that you’re attacking a straw man argument by building on a false premise. You impute to me a position that I haven’t stated or implied, then claim the position is incoherent.
“Clearly, in legal terms, evidence must be presentable to a court or jury. That means it must be third-person information.__Thus, Steve rejects the requirement that we support our legal answers with evidence.”
i) What a stupid statement. Testimonial evidence isn’t limited to second parties. The accused can also testify to his motives. That would reflect a first-person perspective, not a third-person perspective.
ii) Let’s also keep in mind that trials can only arrive at what is, at best, a probable conclusion regarding the criminal intent (or lack thereof) of the accused. Only the accused can know for a fact what his motives were. (God also knows the motives of the accused, but not by empirical means.)
iii) As a further mark of his ineptitude, Jason is conflating the general issue of what counts as legal evidence with the specific issue of what would count as particular evidence of criminal intent.
For example, fingerprint evidence may be relevant to establishing the defendant’s actions, but that’s irrelevant to establishing his intent.
The question at issue is not whether empirical evidence can establis what he did, but whether empirical evidence can establish why he did it.
“Maybe Steve thinks we can judge a person's motives with some other kind of evidence, some non-empirical evidence. What counts as non-empirical evidence in Steve's book, then?”
Another stupid remark since I’ve already stated the relevant lines of evidence.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/11/secular-scumbags.html#3990737697006000772
“He cannot be sure what is in a person's mind. Even if he asks them, they could lie.”
i) Of course, that wasn’t my only line of evidence.
ii) Moreover, this objection is equally applicable to an empirical criterion since a defendant can also indulge in deceptive behavior.
“Of course, people often disagree about whether or not something is evil. Our intuitions don't seem to match up a lot of the time. Does this mean that some people are simply good, and some are simply evil?”
It means we need divine revelation to correct or confirm our moral intuitions.
“In that case, by what right does Steve have to presume that he is good and that another person is evil?”
Since when do Christians presume that they are good?
“On what basis can he justify his intuitive judgments about evilness?”
Notice, once again, how Jason simply imputes a position to his opponent, then attacks the implications of his own imputation. It’s like watching a cat attack it’s own reflection in the mirror.
“Where are Steve's grounds for moral superiority?”
The moral superiority of what? Christian ethics? That would be grounded in divine revelation.
“Show me a mathematical proof that is not observable, please.__Show me any instance in which an unobservable mathematical proof has been accepted.”
Jason is a cornucopia of incompetence. Did I say mathematical proofs were unobservable? No. I said the evidence on which they’re based is unobservable.
How does one even begin to reason with someone as hopelessly uncomprehending as Jason?
Mathematical proofs involve the intuition mathematical truths along with their logical relationships.
“In Steve's view, this means that brains are physical versions of abstract entities, called ‘minds’."
Since I never said that or implied that, this isn’t “Steve’s view.”
I’ve never defined what “brains” are in this debate. Neuroscience is not at the point where we can offer a comprehensive definition of the human brain.
“Now, steve will also tell you that an apple is a physical manifestation of an abstract apple. So, again, the physical apple is a manifestation of an abstract entity, namely, an apple.”
A physical apple is a concrete exemplification of God’s abstract concept of that particular apple.
“Now, unless Steve has invented a new term for an abstract apple (perhaps he calls them ‘abapples’), Steve uses one word here: ‘apple’.”
Of course, there’s a standard terminology for abstract objects. It goes back to Plato. And it’s been refined over the centuries with additional nomenclature. The fact that Jason is too much of a philosophical ignoramus to know this doesn’t mean I have to invent a new term.
“But now Steve uses two words when it comes to the mind. First there's the physical brain. Then there's the mind.__This is confusing.”
It’s confusing if you’re as easily confused as Jason. I never used the word “physical brain” as a synonym for the “mind.”
“If the brain is just one physical instance of a mind, then why not admit that a person's mind is actually occuring in their brain?”
The human mind uses the brain.
“I did not attribute apophatic definitions to theists in general.”
You have to attribute apophatic definitions to theists in general to dismiss theism in general in the way you did.
If your attribution only applies to some theists, then your dismissal of theism only applies to some versions of theism, but not others.
“No, I didn't, and I already explained that I didn't. Now Steve just won't accept the truth.”
What I won’t accept is your fallacious explanation, which I dealt with at the time.
“The fact is, I have yet to see anyone define ‘the supernatural’ or ‘God’ in a way that makes sense.”
Of course, this is so vague that it hardly merits a response. Unless you say what you mean, there’s nothing to respond to.
“It's an open challenge to all of you: put a definition of the word ‘God’ on the table, and let's see if we can make heads or tails of it.__Any takers?”
I already cited omnipotence as a test case. Go back and interact with what I wrote.
“Steve says that he has defined what the term ‘abstract realm’ refers to.__Can anyone point me to it?”
“Abstract realm” is your term, not mine. I quoted some paradigm examples along with the attendant explanations.
For another illustration of what I mean, read “The Model,” and “Some Consequences,” in chap. 3 of the following thesis:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/welty/mphil.pdf
“Steve also says that the ‘mind of man’ is ‘aspatial.’__Steve's evidence for this?”
I quoted examples of mental properties, along with Lowe’s discussion of why these are irreducible to physical properties.
Why do you constantly demand answers to questions that have already been answered? Are you terminally dense?
“Are these physical manifestations aspatial, in Steve's view? Probably not.”
Another stupid question. By definition, physicality generally includes spatiality.
Steve quote's Lowe's discussion of why abstract entities are not reducible to physical systems.
ReplyDeleteLowe's relevant discussion, as quoted by Steve, is thus:
"it is not so easy to eliminate the ontology of mathematics without undermining the very truths of mathematics, which we may be loath to do. If numbers do not exist, it is hard to see how it could be true to say that 2 plus 1 equals 3. So perhaps we should reconcile ourselves to the existence of abstract entities."
So, Lowe's argument is, it's hard to imagine how mathematics could be true if there isn't a Platonic realm of forms. Therefore, "perhaps" we should believe there is a Platonic realm of forms.
Perhaps?
Is that the stunning argument by Lowe which you want me to counter, Steve?
Perhaps?
The funny thing is, postulating a Platonic realm does not help us understand how our mathematical theorems are true. It just claims that our mathematical theorems correspond to some Platonic realm. The question of "how" remains unanswered.
I, however, have approached a theory of how mathematics is true. It is true because it formalizes the rules of calculation, rules which are purely functional in nature, and thus whose truth is not limited by the nature of the system in which they are instantiated.
This doesn't seem so hard to understand, contrary to Lowe's assertion. So I don't see much reason to take his "perhaps" so seriously.
Steve says,
ReplyDelete"Jason is a cornucopia of incompetence. Did I say mathematical proofs were unobservable? No. I said the evidence on which they’re based is unobservable."
Steve doesn't see the logic of his own absurd position. He says that mathematical proofs aren't based on observable evidence. And yet, the evidence is the proof itself!
Thus, I asked him to show me an unobservable mathematical proof. He says I missed his point. The fact is, his point is absurd.
Steve wishes to ground mathematics wholly in the intuition. He says, "Mathematical proofs involve the intuition mathematical truths along with their logical relationships."
Of course, mathematicians (like all great scientists, artists, philosophers, etc.) rely on their intuition. But the intuition does not ground the truth of a mathematical theorem. Nobody accepts a mathematical proof on intuition. At least, nobody but Steve.
When trying to come to terms with Steve's bizarre comment about the "physical manifestations of the mind," I asked: "Are these physical manifestations aspatial, in Steve's view? Probably not."
ReplyDeleteSteve responded: "Another stupid question. By definition, physicality generally includes spatiality."
Now, if one had reason to assume that Steve had a solid grasp of logic, science, and common sense, one might think it stupid to ask such a simple question as I had done.
But I try not to make unreasonable assumptions.
So, Steve says there are physical manifestations of the mind. That is, the mind is physically manifest. Spatial. At least to some degree, or in some ways which Steve may one day decide to explain for us.
And I'm sure Steve will be happy to explain how this somewhat physical mind is also aspatial, since he quite clearly said it was.
When asked to provide a definition of the term "God," Steve replied:
ReplyDelete"I already cited omnipotence as a test case. Go back and interact with what I wrote."
A test case?
How about a definition?
As for omnipotence, it is a little ambiguous.
Does "omnipotence" imply a complete lack of restrictions on one's abilities?
Can God, for example, make "1+1=2" false?
Can God sin?
Can God spit on the sidewalk?
Can God be an atheist?
If there are some things I can do, but which God cannot do, then God is limited.
Perhaps God is limited to being able to do only those things which are in God's nature to do.
But, then, aren't we all limited to being able to do only those things which it is in our nature to do?
So, would that make all of us omnipotent?
Steve also says : "God is a mental being" which "remains unchanged" and which "doesn’t interact with 'spatiotemporal events" but which "enacts spatiotemporal events."
Question: If God enacts spatiotemporal events, does God react to spatiotemporal events?
That is, do Gods "enactions" ever result from spatiotemporal events?
If God's "enactions" do result from spatiotemporal events, then what does it mean to say that God does not change?
If God's behavior is a reaction, that means it is caused; it means God changes; it means God interacts.
So, no, I still don't see a coherent notion of "God" on the table.
Jason Streitfeld wrote:
ReplyDelete"As for omnipotence, it is a little ambiguous. Does 'omnipotence' imply a complete lack of restrictions on one's abilities? Can God, for example, make '1+1=2' false? Can God sin? Can God spit on the sidewalk? Can God be an atheist?"
Why don't you interact with what Steve wrote on the subject in the first post in this thread instead of asking questions he's already answered?
Jason Engwer,
ReplyDeleteIn Steve's original post, he alluded to a couple books in which he says the definition of "God" has been carefully laid out. Relevant quotations would be appreciated.
Steve also said: "God can instantiate any compossible state of affairs."
That doesn't explain anything, and it doesn't make any of my questions unnecessary or redundant.
I don't think I'm out of line for pointing out the fact that nobody's put a definition of "God" on the table here. (Rhology at least had the courtesy and the courage to do that on his blog, but he hasn't completely followed through with that discussion yet.) And the fact that what has been said about God is anything but clear.
Jason S,
ReplyDeleteWhat I put on my blog was simply an excerpt from the London Baptist Confession of 1689. I can tell you with confidence that the gents here hold to it. Interact with that; don't hold up the discussion for the sake of semantics.
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“And I'm sure Steve will be happy to explain how this somewhat physical mind is also aspatial, since he quite clearly said it was.”
Look, dummy, I never said the mind was physical. I said the very opposite. The brain is physical, but the mind is not.
Why should I waste time answering your questions when, every time I answer one of your questions, you misstate the answer?
To say that x has physical manifestations doesn’t make x itself physical. Try not to be such a klutz, will you? Can you try, for just one day, not to be such a klutz?
“A test case?__How about a definition?”
You’re such an idiot. I gave you a definition.
“Does ‘omnipotence’ imply a complete lack of restrictions on one's abilities?”
You’re such an idiot. Don’t you know what the word “compossible” means?
“So, would that make all of us omnipotent?”
Can we all instantiate any compossible state of affairs?
“Question: If God enacts spatiotemporal events, does God react to spatiotemporal events?”
No.
“That is, do Gods ‘enactions’ ever result from spatiotemporal events?”
No.
“If God's behavior is a reaction, that means it is caused; it means God changes; it means God interacts.__So, no, I still don't see a coherent notion of ‘God’ on the table.”
In your usual stupidity, you draw a conclusion from a position you impute to me, rather than the position I actually stated.
“Relevant quotations would be appreciated.”
In other words, you haven’t bothered to read standard theological literature. Yet that didn’t prevent you from imputing positions to Christian theists. What theologians have you actually read?
“That doesn't explain anything, and it doesn't make any of my questions unnecessary or redundant.”
Now you’re moving the goal post. You asked whether the definition of God was incoherent. What is incoherent about saying that God can instantiate any compossible state of affairs?
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“Steve doesn't see the logic of his own absurd position. He says that mathematical proofs aren't based on observable evidence. And yet, the evidence is the proof itself!”
Jason is incorrigibly obtuse. A mathematical proof doesn’t make something true. Rather, it presupposes that something is already true.
It’s based on deductions from axioms and prior theorems. That’s the evidence on which it’s based. Not the proof itself.
A mathematician doesn’t begin with the proof. That’s the end-result of a process. So the evidence on which the proof is based cannot very well be the proof itself. Otherwise, the mathematician could never get started.
Moreover, the axioms and theorems are not intrinsically observable. It may be convenient to write these down, but they can also be memorized.
“Steve wishes to ground mathematics wholly in the intuition.”
No, I ground mathematics in abstract objects.
Intuition is simply a way of accessing the truth of abstract mathematical objects (like axioms). And logical intuition is also necessary to deduce further implications.
“Nobody accepts a mathematical proof on intuition.”
To the contrary, you must be able to apprehend that the proof is logically compelling. That comes down to intuition. The intuitive sense that the axioms are true. The intuitive sense that deductions are valid.
JASON STREITFELD SAID:
ReplyDelete“Lowe's relevant discussion, as quoted by Steve, is thus.”
No, everything I quoted from Lowe is relevant to the issue at hand.
“Is that the stunning argument by Lowe which you want me to counter, Steve?”
Of course, you truncated his argument.
“I, however, have approached a theory of how mathematics is true. It is true because it formalizes the rules of calculation, rules which are purely functional in nature, and thus whose truth is not limited by the nature of the system in which they are instantiated.”
A carburetor is functional. Does that make it true?
What makes the rules of calculation true? Formalization?
Are they true because they’re formalized? Or are they formalized because they’re true?
What makes a calculation true or false? Just a set of rules? Can we change the rules?
PAUL C SAID:
ReplyDelete“No, I don't claim that empiricism is the only way to determine motives. What I claim is that it's the way in which motive is determined in a court of law, which is what we are discussing. I have supported this with an example of the law as it relates to ascertaining criminal intent, a piece of evidence which (ironically) you have chosen to completely ignore. “
All you’ve done is to interpret that example empirically. The example itself doesn’t yield your interpretation. Asserting that it’s empirical is not an argument. Where’s the argument?
“The first approach is purely empirical.”
No, the first approach is not purely empirical. It involves the solicitation of a first-person viewpoint, which is otherwise inaccessible apart from the defendant volunteering this privileged information.
His statement is empirical, but his statement is a statement of a private state of mind which is not empirical. His statement cannot be empirically verified.
“The second approach is also empirical, since it relies entirely on one's observation of the situation.”
Wrong again. While the situation may be observable, what we’d do in the same situation goes back to our own unobservable motives.
“So far, you have failed to explain your alternative to the empirical processes currently employed in our legal systems. I can only assume that your decision to ignore the piece of evidence that I provided - of how legal systems actually work - is somehow connected to your belief that you have a superior alternative.”
So far, you’ve failed to even grasp what’s involved.
I told Peter I'd post a single entry covering all of the basic issues that have been brought up here so far. It seems that's not going to happen. There's just too much to cover for a single entry. Even for a single blog post on my own blog.
ReplyDeleteSo, what I've decided to do is post my arguments on my own blog as they come, and update you all here with the links.
I'm hoping to cover all the issues here in a small number of blog posts. Perhaps five or six. It's hard to say at this point. Also, I have no idea how much time I'll be able to devote to this little project. I may have a new entry up every week or so. Maybe not.
I'm posting this here, and not in Peter Pike's The Jello Fellow thread, because I'm not allowed to post three times in a row in that thread, and nobody's posted there since my last two entries.
So, here's the latest entry: An Argument For Theological Noncognitivism.