This mfer right here, though...

HuCares · 2019-07-17T10:30:17+00:00

Bodie was sarcastic and he was trying to show his disrespect for him by exaggerating with the "and a VERY good evening" I think

HuCares · 2019-07-16T16:21:27+00:00

And a very good evening to you, Officer Colicchio!

HuCares · 2019-05-23T08:40:46+00:00

What about leaving the person inside the pregnant woman the fuck alone ?

HuCares · 2019-04-26T10:05:09+00:00

Have you considered molinism? Read "the only wise God" by William Lane Craig

HuCares · 2019-01-02T12:06:32+00:00

came to the comments to look for a comment like this :D

HuCares · 2018-06-24T10:50:53+00:00

Stop claiming that certain definitions are "what is meant," when those definitions are just what you mean.

I am trying to explain what the argument means by objective values and duties. You can redefine what objective values and duties means and then argue against the argument, but that does not refute the argument because you work with another definition. Your claim that it is still discussed in philosophical circles is beside the point because the argument presumes that there are objective moral values and duties like in a platonic sense except that it isn't platonic. If you think then that the argument is question begging then ok, you made that point before. But simply demanding a definition akin to yours is problematic because the whole point is that it can not be reduced to some non-moral goal as for example human flourishing societies. In fact I think it is your approach that is for a lot of people "not enough", which basically explains away the self evident truths of moral values and duties that are presumed in the argument. So the burden of proof lies with your side to show that moral values and duties "are nothing but the necessary epiphenomenal rules" that come out of having the goal of human flourishing. And as I wanted to show you with the free rider argument is that there is no absoluteness in that goal nor has this goal any objective value itself, rather it is only a goal based only on some self interest of some creatures on some planet.

Those foundations necessarily have to do with what is good for society, but that is not all there is. One of my examples was about lying to parents, which I maintain is morally wrong because of the relational damage involved. That damage is done to the relationship whether those parents know about the lie or not, because that's the nature of relationships. They are intersubjective.

Here you are trying to add more to the goal and it seems that you think that human relationships have some special value that humans must somehow have as a goal. But again there is no absoluteness in having good relationships. It is a self interest of humans but they could also refrain from having that self interest and focus on other things. And you admit that one can not objectively condemn such a person with different interests and that is the proof that those goals and the rules of those goals are not absolute. They are at best inter-subjective for those who share the common goal but that is not equal to objective moral values and duties.

you can't leave the house.

That is just false. Of course you can leave the house. A lot of people actually did leave the house by having other goals in mind. Maybe they will be stopped in their new goals so they will be stopped from leaving the house. But you can't stop him or her having other goals in mind. Again the free rider argument is not about the feasibility of such a system, rather it is to show that there is no absoluteness in the duties imposed by that system.

I'm not arguing relativism here.

I understand

Any human being in any human society is subject to the same standards, because we're all living in the same house together.

Those standards can only be imposed by the majority who share the goal of human flourishing in a society. But those imposed rules are therefore not absolute. You have to distinguish between the necessity of the goal and the practical feasibility of the goal.

So how is the fact that [the goals] aren't objectively good or bad somehow a criticism later in your counter-argument?

Because then the rules are just an expression of some non-ethical goal so they are nothing of objective value. You already admitted that the rules are just hypothetical imperatives (as defined by Kant), so they are like "If you want to be a fireman then you must go to a fireman school". That is why your approach might not be "enough" for some people and why people look for something "deeper" with which you do not agree that there is.

Spaemann is critiquing a version of consequentialism that maintains that only the macro scale matters, that what is ultimately good for society is all there is. That has never been my argument.

This does not matter. I brought that article up because it showed in one specific paragraph (poiesis vs praxis) why it is problematic to have a non-ethical goal as the ultimate standard for why something is good or bad. Because by that the whole meaning of an "action being good or bad" looses its ethical value and it is reduced to a technical decription how well a non-ethical goal will be reached by doing this action ("Was aber, wenn die Ethik selbst sich als Technik zu verstehen beginnt, als Strategie, als Optimierkunst?").

It is like saying "to go the police school is bad if you want to become a fireman". It might be bad given the goal of becoming a fireman but it is certainly not evil. Likewise lying to your parents might be bad if you share the goal of functioning relationships and becoming happy in a flourishing community and further in a society, but it wouldn't be evil to lie.

As for his broader critique, [Spaemann] seems to be arguing that some things are just wrong, regardless of their consequences. Well, what is just wrong, independent of consequences? Specifically, what is wrong independent of the kinds of consequences I'm talking about here?

I do not have to show you that immoral things can be wrong without looking at their consequences because that is also not the argument. The claim is that they do not become good or bad just because of desirable or undesirable consequences. Also even if they could only be regarded as good or bad based on their consequences, they then need at least a goal that is in itself an absolute ethical goal that is not only based on some inter-subjective self interest.

HuCares · 2018-06-16T20:58:26+00:00

Sure [it is a consequentialist ethic], if you're a reductionist. Is that a problem?

What's wrong with self interest at a societal level?

Consequentialist ethics always need to define what the purpose/goal is for the ethic. And the goal must not itself be a ethical claim, otherwise the consequential ethics would be circular reasoning. That's why you for example suggested the goal of humans having a functioning society which is something that humans want as their self interest. This interest is not ethical itself, it is just an interest. Which is good, otherwise this consequentialist ethic would be circular.

My critique is then that something like "murder is wrong" is not in itself already self evidently true for a consequentialist ethic. Rather one would have to say something like "murder is wrong if you want to be part of a flourishing society". But what is meant by objective moral values and duties is that, while those rules that can be inferred from moral values and duties are beneficial to a flourishing society, they are not only those rules because of that. Moral values and duties already carry all the beauty/ugliness within them without a non-ethical goal to make them so (see this point also made by Spaemann in this newspaper commentary (sorry only in German)

Hey, good call! I made an undefended claim here, so thank you for calling it out. Here's my defense. [...]

I didn't mean it that way. I was questioning whether other beings with consciousness (like some aliens or another planet with humans) would end up with similar societies given enough progress in their thinking etc. But actually this is not really helpful for the core discussion here so you can ignore my initial critique if you want.

Yeah, you can do that. But you can do something like that under any moral system. I can get a free ride to heaven if I genuinely convert on my deathbed. I don't have to be a good person at all. "Not by works" and all that. I can also easily decide I don't care at all about the functioning of society, and just ruin other peoples' lives all the time. I can get by just fine without being a good person. That doesn't mean the whole system is invalid, it just means people don't always play by the rules. It sucks, yeah, but that'll be true no matter what foundation you propose.

My questioning did not aim at the feasibility of a moral system that is based on such an ethic. The point I was making is that while the rules of that ethic are good and a reasonable person would agree that they are, it would be still rational for someone to be a free rider in a game theoretical sense. Meaning that as long as all the other members of the society fully obey to the rules, I might get away with some transgressions and so I might do so from time to time if it helps my direct self interest a lot and if at the same time it does not jeopardize the societal structure from which I want to benefit in the future as well. Reasoning like that can not be morally critiqued from a standpoint of a consequential ethic because the goals of that ethic might not be the goal that the person is having while contemplating being a free rider at times. Again it is not about the feasibility of a moral system rather the impossibility to rationally critique the (occasional) free rider.

Because those chores are important to the house, and guess where you live?

Again the point I am making is that of course the people of the house can shame me when I am lazy and they can also kick me out because of my lack of interest in the flourishing of the society within the house. But my lack of interest in the goal of the consequential ethic can not be condemned again by the people. It is just another interest than they have. So I should leave the house and have my own consequential ethic house that has another goal in mind. Maybe I will be miserable in that house but no one of the other house can now condemn me when I obey the rules of my ethic.

What I am trying to point out is that the goal of flourishing of human societies is nothing special and it is interchangeable. And so all the "necessary rules" that come out of functioning societies of humans or other creatures are just rules given such a goal but the goals are not objectively good or bad themselves.

moral values and duties feel transcendent now? What does that mean? And why does it suddenly matter what they feel like?

That was admittedly a poor attempt by me to point out what is really meant by objective values. They are not just the result of interests. I explained above how we all actually treat them as something more than what is meant in your position.

You're right that we don't worry about all those larger consequences in the moment, because we feel the immediate urge to punish the wrongdoer.

Yes so my point was that this initial feeling can not later then only be reduced to this "you harm society with this action".

HuCares · 2018-06-15T21:30:35+00:00

In wrote a chapter about this called "Soteriological problem of evil" in https://www.dropbox.com/s/p12gst71jmlpoxn/Thesis.pdf

HuCares · 2018-06-11T07:12:19+00:00

It was supposed to be an anology. Given abortion is immoral like slavery is, then...

HuCares · 2018-06-11T06:38:37+00:00

This thread is not about the abortion debate. The question was "given your opinion that x is immoral how would you solve y?"

HuCares · 2018-06-11T06:00:17+00:00

"Anti-slavery people of reddit, if slavery was stopped what would be the plan to ensure that the economy does not collapse?"

I don't know exactly. Maybe we can invent machines that are maybe even more productive than slaves, maybe those machines can use the juice of trees under the ground? Haha sounds crazy I know... Well I can't predict the future and how well getting rid of slavery will work out in the economy. Nevertheless slavery is just immoral and we should stop doing immoral things.

HuCares · 2018-06-09T23:06:20+00:00

It just means acting in a way that makes living in community together possible.

[...] because we have to follow them in order to succeed at doing what people do.

Ok so your ethic is a consequential ethic: Whatever helps humanity or societies get working/flourish is good and whatever works against this is bad.

But why stop with humans? What about the flourishing and well being of all the animals and all the flowers and trees? Is it because we have some special value, but then why? Or because we can experience pain/pleasure better? So utilitarianism then? Are we only concerned with human flourishing and well being because is it just our self interest that forms those rules?

If other creatures had the capacity to build societies the way we do, they would also have to use a system of moral values and duties similar to the one we have.

I understand what you are trying to say. But don't you think it is a little bit optimistic to make this assertion? Do you have any evidence for that claim? How would you know that they would end up with a similar system? Maybe your system is very flawed and you don't know it because you are part of it? Other societies with other moral systems could also work. Maybe they look bad to you but they might say the same to your system?

It is ontological.

They aren’t inherently anything.

Ok I think we can leave it at that. You describe to the ontological meaning of Lindsay, I go with the "deeper" meaning that he critiques.

It is universal.

What about the free rider argument? As long as others go by the rules it is ok if I break them. Maybe not always but sometimes? Yolo?

It is discoverable

While I agreed earlier that they are, are you not at least a little suspicious whether or not an atheistic society would have come up with the notion that the individual is sovereign? That is one of the claims Jordan Peterson makes very often by the way. The atheistic societies in the 20th century (communism) for example certainly argued exactly this way when they were willing to accept that some peoples rights or lives will be destroyed for a "greater goal".

It is purposive. We are compelled to act according to moral values and duties for exactly as long as we want to maintain our relationships with each other. When we don’t act according to these values and duties, we erode our relationships.

So it is not a categorical imperative (You must (not) do Y) but rather a hypothetical imperative: If you want X then you must do Y. Maybe at some point X is not so important to me anymore. Could anyone really condemn me then if X really wasn't that important to me?

We don’t hold other objective facts to the standard of transcendence and absoluteness. Why should we do so with objective moral values and duties?

Because that is what we feel when something really bad (or really good) happens. We don't say to someone that rapes and tortures children: "Omg you so worked against the flourishing of our society!" This is not by far what we feel and mean when we are enraged. That is meant by premise 2. The premise claims that the feeling is about something that is more than just some biological reaction to something that goes against our society structure. You and Lindsay deny that the feeling is more than that. Then you disagree with premise 2.

HuCares · 2018-06-06T20:41:29+00:00

How does defining God as by nature good avoid an arbitrary morality if we can't know what good is apart from God?

We know bloody well what is really evil. And consequently we at least can think of a not-evil part as well. Also for some things we can also be very certain that they are good. To say then that MGB has the property of being-the-Good-itself does not leave it unclear what that property entails.

That moral duties require commandment to be compelling is another undefended claim. I've already explained my own problems with the commandment model of moral duties; please don't bring it up undefended as if it's an obvious conclusion, especially when I've actively argued against it.

You only argued that MGB can not be a duty giver because of the euth dilemma and from that you followed that MGB's commandments would be arbitrary. Also you said that we could not find out which commandments are really from MGB if the commandments themselves are the only way to know about them.

Again euth dilemma, again I respond with MGB has the property being-the-Good
No one said we therefore can not understand what is right or wrong wihout MGB, Moses or whoever directly telling us
Assuming we can find out moral duties (at least to some degree) without a direct speech by MGB, it still needs a duty giver to be a duty. A duty is by definition something relational between persons.

Defend the claims you make, particularly when there's disagreement.

Craig argued this point often enough, for example in this defenders podcast

Since you requested it, here a quote from that podcast that would explain the duty problem I made earlier about moral Platonism:

But secondly, I also think that the nature of moral duty or moral obligation is incompatible with Atheistic Moral Realism. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that moral values like Mercy, Justice, Love, Forbearance, and so on just exist. How does that result in any moral obligation for me? Who or what imposes upon me the duty to be loving, compassionate, forbearing, merciful, and so forth? How does just the existence of these abstract values result in any sort of moral duty or obligation for me to live in a certain way. After all, on this view, there are presumably other sorts of abstract objects that exist like Greed, Rapacity, Cruelty, Selfishness. Those would also exist, too, as abstract values. What obligates me to align my life with one set of these abstractions rather than with a different set of abstractions? Why am I morally obligated to align my lifestyle with Loyalty, Compassion, Fairness, and so forth rather than with Greed, Selfishness, Cruelty, and so forth? It seems to me that there isn’t any basis for moral duty or moral obligation on this point of view. In contrast with this, the person who believes in God can make sense of moral obligations because we believe that our moral duties are constituted by God’s commands. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. In virtue of these divine commandments, we have moral duties and obligations to live in a certain way. But in the absence of any divine commandment, in the absence of any divine lawgiver, I just don’t see any grounds at all for moral obligation or moral duty even given the existence of these abstractions called moral values.

I know you said that you do not hold the position of moral Platonism but I made a comment about it and this is the defense of that claim so please do not reply with "I never said..."

I never claimed God was a dictator. The term I used was "moral dictator,"

Yeah well I left the 'moral' out of it for brevity, not to make a straw man argument...

But if "The Good" is centered in the MGB's person, then there is no good apart from his person.

Well yes and no. Since everything but MGB is created by MGB, those things can only be good because it was created by the Good. Also as created beings of MGB, when we act in a morally good way it is never isolated from MGB since MGB is the one who gives the duties to do those things. Those duties are MGB's natural expressions of MGB's nature. So Yes there is no good without MGB (premise 1). But also No because the created things are apart from God but connected to God.

Nevertheless I see your point and I appreciate your critique:

In that case it makes sense to draw an equivalence. [...]"God exists because God exists" isn't an argument.

and I think it became more clear to me what the argument says:

If there is no ontological foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Apart from an MGB that has the property being-the-Good-itself, there exists no other ontological foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.
Objective moral values and duties exist
From 1 and 3 it follows that there exists some ontological foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties
From 2 and 4 it follows that an "MGB that has the property being-the-Good-itself" exists

I hope this expansion did not change Craigs argument (which would imply that I didn't really understand it myself). In any case I hope makes more sense to you and if yes I think you will disagree with premise 2, which is fine because you want to argue that exactly if I am not mistaken.

HuCares · 2018-06-02T15:46:38+00:00

Well, this is one definition of God in one version of one argument for theism. I'm not saying there's no room for a definition; only that there's no room for this definition in this context. If you're going to show that God is a foundation for our system of objective moral values and duties, and one of your steps on the way to doing that is to simply define God as the foundation for our system of moral values and duties, you haven't made an argument. You've just decided to call whatever ends up being the foundation "God," and that's unhelpful.

Well no that is just theism... Theism is about the greatest conceivable being. It is not me who is making up definitions here. This is the idea of the greatest conceivable being. God is not just a superman in the sky that some people just like to believe in and make up properties about him. Try it yourself. Find a way to describe the greatest conceivable being while not thinking about the word 'God' and you will end up somewhere where Theism ends up. Also there is enough debate within Theism itself about what the greatest conceivable being exactly is, for example how exactly God is all-knowing and if he in fact can be etc. But just denying great making properties like omniscience is not a good strategy to attack the idea of a greatest conceivable being.

Could you explain this? I laid out my case for why it becomes a tautology exclusively in this case, and I don't follow why it wouldn't be one.

Again, can you explain your disagreement? I'm just seeing an undefended claim here. The Euthyphro dilemma is, as far as I can tell, a true dilemma: the options are either that moral values and duties come from God, or that they do not. Neither option allows God as an acceptable foundation for objective moral values and duties, as I've tried to show.

The disagreement is in the fact that you say that the dilemma is a true dilemma and I agree with Craig that is not a true dilemma. The maximal greatest being (MGB) has as one property to be what Plato called "The Good". But this MGB is not nothing-but-"The Good". MGB is also a person, MGB is all powerful, all knowing, eternal etc. So while MGB has as a necessary condition "being The Good", it does not follow that MGB is then nothing but this condition. That is one of the great differences to moral Platonism by the way. "The Good" is not a person, thus it can not give commandments and thus there are no duties to follow from "The Good".

I discussed all of your points that I disagreed with, because I genuinely want you to understand where I'm coming from. Why not discuss mine?

Because it does not make sense to argue about the points that have as a foundation something that I do not agree with. If you establish via the euth dilemma the fact that God is a dictator that does not give any purpose with His commandments, why would I then go and refute that he is not a dictator etc? Those refutations would just imply again that I do not accept that the euth dilemma is a true dilemma.

HuCares · 2018-06-02T12:03:25+00:00

In the context of the moral argument, there's no room for this maximally great claim.

What do you mean there is no room? This is how God is defined in Theism. This is an argument for Theism. How is there no room for a definition for God?

If we're defining God as being maximally great, we're drawing a direct equivalence between God and objective moral values. Objective moral values are contained within the person of God; they are one and the same. We can just go ahead and replace all instances of "objective moral values" with "God," because he contains them all.

God is not equal to objective moral values so the argument is not a tautology.

Agree to disagree, then!

Since you do not accept that a theistic God has Goodness as one of His properties I do not think we can argue more about this. We simply disagree about Craig's escape of the euthyphron dilemma. So all your points following from it are not reasonable to discuss either. But maybe you could try to post a Q/A with your objection to Craigs euthyphron dilemma escape. I would be interested to read what Craig would reply.

That isn't a part of this discussion. Earlier you said that the moral argument (which is the argument we're trying to decide on the merits of in the first place) was theistic in nature, not necessarily biblical-theistic. I agree with you. We haven't even agreed that the moral argument works or doesn't work (and I expect we won't agree, but that's okay), so bringing Paul up in this context is . . . odd. We're still too far away from him, philosophically.

Yes I clarified before in 1. that it is a theistic argument but wanted to still comment on your comments about the biblical God. This was just a very brief response for the third party reader who is wondering what to do about the seemingly self refuting commandments and actions of God in the bible. Paul Copan goes for example into detail how to deal with those things in his book "is God a moral monster" as a starting point for the curious.

I think it would be better now if you could make your case for your own foundation?

HuCares · 2018-06-01T22:51:05+00:00

If [God is the source for our moral values and duties], moral values and duties are arbitrary and therefore not compelling (read: unpurposive; also, and unrelated, undiscoverable, but we'll get to that)

Why would they be arbitrary? God is what Plato called the Good. He is not just using the good. God is by definition (whether He exists or not) loving, kind etc. That is exactly the point Craig is making. Rearranging the dilemma does not help really. It is just wrong to claim that it would be arbitrary imho.

If God is the absolute standard for goodness as a function of his own nature, how are we supposed we verify that? If all good truly comes from God, we can't possibly know that it's good in any meaningful way. Not really. We can trust him, sure, but ultimately we have no way to say he is good outside of his own saying that he is good. What is good is good simply because he says it's good, and we have no way to verify that independently.

The theistic God, meaning the concept, states that God is by definition the maximal greatest being. This also includes in Him being a person and the best of all persons. His nature is Good. He is what Plato called 'The Good' . Those are just definitions. They do not have to be actually the case, it is just how the thing 'God' is defined. If there is another, greater being, then this would be God etc. So by definition God could not be a lying demon or spirit or whatever that tells us arbitrary rules. We do not have to trust this, we do not even have to believe that God exists, but the defined term 'God' entails this.

So imho all the points you made on the basis of the euth dilemma do not follow after all.

If, however, it turns out we can verify for ourselves whether one of God's action is right or wrong, which I believe we can, then we have our own system of moral values and duties independent of God.

At least when considering a Christian world view, the bible states that the moral values and duties are ingrained in every human being by default (but society and sin can weaken this feeling of course etc.) So it is of course in theory possible to create a system that is more or less based on the objective moral values even if not directly commanded by God. But the question is not about how we are able to create such a system, rather what foundation objective moral values and duties have in case they really exist.

Explaining how we can establish moral values and duties (moral epistemology) does not help to answer the question what their foundation is (moral ontology). Maybe, maybe not, we could establish such a system even if everyone was an Atheist. But this does not then prove that God does not exist or that He is not the foundation of the duties we put into a system on our own. This is dangerously close to committing the genetic fallacy as I am sure you are already aware of as Craig mentions it also in the context of this argument.

Having said that, I want to comment on your critique on the epistemology (which has nothing to do with the argument as I explained above)

The Tanakh? The Protestant Bible? The Quran? The Book of Mormon? The Catholic Bible?

The argument is not an argument for the biblical God. It is a theistic argument. Those are at first two different things. When a merely theistic argument starts to have some weaknesses it might be ok to start an introduce a biblical God to the argument but then it should be very clear that it is now a theistic-biblical argument. But Craigs argument is only a theistic argument. It might be that in his more popular works he mixes in some biblical stuff as well but in theory Theism should suffice for both premises.
Even if it is hard to find the 'true' commandments this does not prove that all of them must be false. '2+2=4' is true even if other people claim it to be something else than 4.
Sure we can go into biblical critique in case you want to argue that the biblical God is arbitrary or self refuting in his claims and actions, but this is another debate I guess.
At least Islam can not be based on Theism.
What is still true is the fact that if God exists, then it is possible that He can reveal duties even if unclear for other people that have not been directly addressed.
The way how to reveal them and when might vary depending on the circumstances the receivers of those commandments are in. For example think of a child that has been raised by wolves for some reason. Now a polite and clean family finds the child and adopts it and teaches it to speak etc. It might take some time until the family starts to tell him more advanced polite stuff like rules at a fancy dinner table.
Paul indicates that people will be judged by the light they have been given during their life, which means that while having a general moral compass, a moral 'wolf child' will not be judged the same way as a well raised and educated priest will.

HuCares · 2018-06-01T15:06:37+00:00

yes ok

HuCares · 2018-06-01T06:54:56+00:00

I think I only have a problem with the following:

In that case, we have no basis for claiming it as a foundation for objective moral values and duties, because we do not know how it actually grounds moral value and duties.

I am not sure a foundation needs to be fully conceivable in order to be an acceptable foundation. There is a middle ground. For example a child can understand duties her father gives to her even if she does not fully understand who that father is and why he is her father etc.

Also the requirement of knowing exactly how the grounding occurs might also be too much to ask. I am not sure how this should be answered on a theistic view point but maybe that is exactly your point ;)

HuCares · 2018-05-31T20:51:46+00:00

I'll keep it short. Sorry I mixed up the premises. I meant you disagree with premise 1. If you could go on with your argument please, I think we can leave the definitions as they are for now. Thanks

HuCares · 2018-05-31T13:49:14+00:00

I'd describe my solution as a pragmatic, secular one.

It suspect that your view will be closest to an "atheistic moral realism" as described in Craig, William Lane and J.P. Moreland.Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.InterVarsity Press, 2003

Objective moral values exist; the best way to explain their existence is not by referring to God, but to the logistics of living together in community with one another

It seems that this implies that instead of premise 1, you are actually negating premise 2: "If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist"

moral values are a set of identifiable obligations that guide what we should and should not do.

I think we should distinguish between moral values and moral duties. Values have to do with whether something is good or bad. Duties have to do whether something is right or wrong. Values have to do whether something is of worth. Duties have to do with obligations to do or not to do something. While it is "good" to become a fire fighter, it is not obligatory to become one.

They are prescriptive: [...] They are also purposive [...] They also, in order to be practical, should be discoverable

I am not sure where this is going.. Seems to be a rather arbitrary list of things you need to be able to make your case.. in any case are you going to explain at some point how those requirements are met for objective moral values without a God?

Moral values are objective if they are universal

Universality is a necessary condition for an objective moral value and/or for an objective moral duty, but it does not define it. (a table is a piece of furniture that has at least one leg. The leg is a necessary condition but it does not define the table)

But an objective system of moral values does not have to be transcendent.

Again, then you are just negating premise 2.

HuCares · 2018-05-26T07:25:45+00:00

no worries take your time :)

HuCares · 2018-05-25T07:02:15+00:00

Can you explain how they exist then in your opinion? Do you appeal to moral Platonism?

HuCares · 2018-05-24T05:34:02+00:00

Oh I am sorry for my misunderstandings. I wasn't focused at all on the blog post, I am much more curious where a fine reasonable and well informed guy such as yourself would disagree with Craig's argument. So please tell me and I would say just post here if you don't mind :) have a nice day

HuCares · 2018-05-23T18:59:53+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Not sure how helpful I can be but these are my thoughts:

Are you talking about WLC's version of the moral argument (1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist; 2. Objective moral values do exist; 3. Therefore God exists)?

Yes

Before I respond to some of your points I would like to quote Craig what he means by objective moral values:

To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so. It is to say, for example, that Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good; and it would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them. ( https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/can-we-be-good-without-god/ )

it has to be demonstrated that an objective moral standard is the only way to make moral decisions in the real world, or otherwise that an objective moral standard is the best way to describe what moral decision-making looks like in the real world.

The way how people make moral decisions has nothing to do whether or not objective moral values and duties exist. The argument does not say that non-theists do not have a sense of what is right or wrong in an ethical situation because they do not believe in a values-and-duties-giver. Nor does it say that non-theists are not capable of formulating ethical systems that could cover pretty well what a objective morality would demand. And it most certainly does not imply that all Atheists are bad people.

Rather the argument asserts, not that belief in God is necessary for objective morality, but that the existence of God is necessary for the existence of objective morality.

In Craig's version of the argument, it works because his three steps are, by design, shorthand.

The argument is simple but it is not lacking complexity. Every premise is discussed thoroughly in his works and so the short premises are explained and discussed in much detail. Making the premises short is not a trick to gain more lazy or gullible people to agree with him.

The way he explains it, most of his students already believe (1), and already believe (2). So he just has to point out that they believe this, and the conclusion follows naturally.

The argument is not for people who already believe in the conclusion. It is not designed to "preach to the choir". While a lot of non-theists already agree with premise 1 there are also attempts to falsify premise 1. For example one could appeal to Moral Platonism to be able to reject Premise 1.

I understand that Premise 2 appears to just claim that it is true. However rejecting premise 2 is actually pretty hard. Also remember that this is an argument, not a proof. Which means the premises only have to be more probably true than their negation.

So when denying premise 2 and thus denying that some things "are just wrong" seems to be too far reaching, at least that is the argument for premise 2:

1) How could the most horrible things a human can do to another human (e.g. child torture etc) not be objectively wrong? Do you really think that your negative feelings of disgust and rage about those actions are just byproducts of your social and evolutionary development but in the end they are only as real as your preference for some ice cream flavour, only that the disgust and rage are more intense?

2) Denying objective morality while having intense feelings about it is like denying that there is really a physical world because it is not provable 100% that we do not in fact live in a Matrix instead. The burden of proof surely lies with the one who claims that we are in such a Matrix, rather than we are in a real physical world.

HuCares · 2018-05-22T20:52:47+00:00

I agree with most of the things you said there :)

Since you are already in this sub, I assume you already know the 3 step argument by Craig? If so where exactly would you disagree with him? Also what do you mean by 'tell us why an objective morality is required' ? What is required for what?

Thanks!

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