17Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves
Now it seems to me raping and pillaging is perfectly acceptable when God commands it. Seems to me you missed a reason people act immorally when you were listing them in your video, i.e. God's command.
This is nonsense. I just don't ever see how bringing God into the picture changes anything. First, bringing God in does NOT give you objective morality. I've never seen anyone successfully argue this (see Euthyphro dilemma). Second, even if it did, how are there non-permissible things when objective morality exists? Regardless of objective morality, all things are always permissible. It's not like God enforces his morals.
I have made several videos on the Euthyphro dilemma, as well as videos explaining how God can be the foundation of objective morality (See the debate with schwanerd).
When sartre (an atheist btw) talked about all things being permissible, he was not saying "no group's set of desires or goals are enforced".
People believing in objective morality usually believe it is objectively immoral to kill a child for the wrongdoing of a parent. The biblical god commands this:
"…Kids shall not be put to death for their fathers sins" [Deut 24:16]
The problem with his “objective” morality is that he later commands people to violate the exact objective moral that supposedly originated with him:
"Attack the Amalekites and kill all of their children and babies and animals." [1 Samuel 15:2-4]
The main problem is that Creatards like WLC and Nephy haven't a clue what Objective is, and are unaware or do not want to admit that an object can consist of more than one part, IE humanity.. Therefor that which benefits Humanity is objectively Moral. The collective term for people who do not realise this is "Fuckwit. As in a Murder of Fuckwits, or a gaggle of Fuckwits. The descriptive presupposition is unimportant as long as you get the proper term Fuckwit into the description.
Objective just means mind-independent, while subjective is a product of a mind (like tastes and preferences).
Humans are objects, that is true. But nothing about observing we are objects implies that benefiting humanity is "objectively good". Rocks are objects, that doesn't imply that destroying rocks is objectively bad. You should look up what David Hume (an atheist) calls the "is-ought gap" if you want a more detailed explanation.
@Epydemic2020 Rocks cannot be destroyed, their matter and energy can only be rearranged therefore your analogy fails on a technicality. Instead we must look at why a rock is a rock, and we find that it is defined by the properties of the rock its "Nature", these are objectively true and are as you say independent of any mind. Now we must look at humanity and ask why it is what it is, and we find that there are behaviors that are inherent to humanity that are properties of its "Nature" QED
Nothing about observing that something exists implies that it is good. When you observe that humans exist... you merely observe that humans exist. That provides no foundation for morality, and makes no statement about what must be good.
"Now we must look at humanity and ask why it is what it is, and we find that there are behaviors that are inherent to humanity that are properties of its 'Nature' QED"
@Epydemic2020 Regarding Hume, he was thinking and writing pre Darwin and pre DNA and if he had the benefit of this knowledge he might have come to a different conclusion. And relying on the subjective assessment of someone from the past seems to me an odd thing to do in pursuit of objective proofs. I instead will use the tools provided by the people who have lived since the mid eighteenth century and have shown time and time again that we are what we are.
@Epydemic2020 Regarding Hume, he was thinking and writing pre Darwin and pre DNA and if he had the benefit of this knowledge he might have come to a different conclusion. And relying on the subjective assessment of someone from the past seems to me an odd thing to do in pursuit of objective proofs. I instead will use the tools provided by the people who have lived since the mid eighteenth century and have shown time and time again that we are what we are.
Excellent video! Glad to have finally found an intelligent christian (seems like all the intelligent christians only can stay christians for but so long)! I'm definitely subscribing (my other christian subscriptions are... deplorable).
Anyway, I have a qualm with your use of the word "anarchy." I think you meant to say "social discord" or "chaos." Anarchy actually means "without government" or "without a ruler." Considering the full spectrum of modern societies and the societies...
...that have existed throughout human history and prehistory, one could make the compelling argument that a formal government is more closely associated with social discord than a lack of one.
Rofl @ the hallelujah song segment at the end; your one sentence revision of the bible makes it an infinitely more palatable and pragmatic book! I might even say you should toss out the rest! :P
Interesting. I actually agree with most of this except BELIEF in objective morality does not give one any more incentive to BE moral. As far as IF obj. morality did NOT actually exist, I don't think we can say whether we'd go bananas or even if we'd be as moral as we r today or not. As with intelligence, we r always getting better. If the bars weren't there 4 intelligence or morality, I don't know that our natural propensity would be inclined to growth/improvement.
Its like babys, when they are born they can smile..even when they have never seen anyone smile before(some are born with eyes still closed) its something we are programed to know.. like dolphis know how to swim the second they are born..most little kids know if they are doing something wrong..like stealing or telling a lie...or good things like trying to help the ones they know...even monkies know when they are doing wrong and good..you see it all the time.. if your smart..you know good is good
This is actually very good. My own reaction to the classical "Everything is permissible" is "Permissible by whom?". Clearly in most civilized countries murder is not permissible, but the authority that makes it so is the laws agreed to by people (at least ideally). And given that "divine" concepts are man-made too, there really is no difference. It's just that the authority is narratively ascribed to the different forms of agencies. Ultimately we have no choice but decide what is permissible.
I realize what the phrase is trying to get at, but I've always found the statement "if God doesn't exist, then all things are permissible" to be no more valid than saying "if Barak Obama doesn't exist, then all things are permissible". If they don't exist you can no longer use their natures or consequences only they can enforce to justify why an act is impermissible, but all other people, laws, ideals, desired outcomes, etc. that do not permit that act would still exist just as they did before.
There is no reason to think barak obama is a necessary condition for objective morality. However, it does make sense for God to be that necessary condition. He is not a contingent human whose existence followed after the existence of objective morality. Plus, morality could be an empty set, that phrase doesn't imply OM actually exists.
I began with "I realize what the phrase is trying to get at" because I know that to some, morality is defined by how actions relate to the nature of an eternal being. It's easy to see how god's nonexistence would turn morality on its head if that were the case. However, if you accept (as I do) a broader definition of morality rather than a specifically theistic one, god's existence or nonexistence has no more impact on it than the president's.
ok, I was thinking about it a bit, I'm changing my premises.
There is no objective morality, but that doesn't mean all thing are permissible, that mean all thing are possible.
Now, even tho morality is subjective, that doesn't mean you can have any morale you wish, because you are not alone !
Even if you think rapping is cool for you, OTHER don't agree with you. And evolution in society etc. built up a whole hierarchy of morale value. context matter.
"There is no objective morality, but that doesn't mean all thing are permissible, that mean all thing are possible."
lol, that is kinda funny (and insightful) if you know the history of this debate. Sartre quoted Dostoevsky about all things being permissible, except Dostoevsky's original quote was "if God does not exist, all things are possible". Permissible and possible mean the same thing in the context of this debate, they both mean "There is no objectively right behavior".
@Epydemic2020 what I don't like is the way deist judges atheist as being immoral because moral require a 'god' to be objective. then without an objective one, you switch to a subjective morality .. which in turn allow any justification as long as it's personal morale and cannot be objectively judged bad or good.
I refuse that simplistic equivocation by postulating that their is a 'greater' moral than the personal one. there social one, 'reason'able one, etc. start with all human are equal..ooc
I don't think atheists are immoral, nor do I think they can't believe in objective morality, I just think they cannot give an account for how morality is objective.
@Epydemic2020 yet, we hear some theist making that claim. I don't agree with your definition of objective morality vs subjective, there a in-between. I would say an objective one, but less absolute.
I say reason, society, evolution ... created morale. It's more than the individual but doesn't require a god to make it true. It is less absolute like 'no killing' doesn't apply to animal, their morale is their nature. yet it apply to human, but some situation permit it. etc.
Reason tells us how to achieve our goals, but it doesn't tell us which goals out to be achieved.
Society is just subjective morality + an appeal to majority.
Evolution is just a biological process. If we deem that as "the good" then we commit the naturalistic fallacy.
I agree that some situations permit killing. I think blanket statements are terrible. I argue for situational ethics. Things are objective good or bad given a specific set of circumstances. for example...
@Epydemic2020 society's morality, is not peer pressure but the society need. ex: stealing, is impossible without society, from which can you steal if you are alone? why stealing is wrong, because it affect other, because you don't want other to steal from you; so some moral was created by society need.
Evolution altruism has (is?) been proven as been the result of evolution, start basic help the other in need and he would help you when you'll be in need, increase survival
@Epydemic2020 Reason can also tell us which goal by helping deduct grander moral principle from basic moral principle, ex: from the self-preservation to species preservation, to posterity, or, to quote spock, the need of the many out-weight the need of the few. to self-sacrifice.
with reason we can postulate premises : do no harm, graduate: harm one to prevent greater harm, extrapolate: would that be beneficial or detrimental considering all teh consequence.
Killing a non-consenting person solely for entertainment is wrong.
It is highly conditional. If you changed "solely for entertainment" to "in self defense" then you are not refuting objective morality, but merely asking a separate moral question.
p.s; I despise more when Christian preach virtue then sin and turn around and just forget it because God pardon everything as long as they believe in christ. yet they judges other, I thought their god is supposed to be the judge ? So many hypocrite.
And my morale cannot accept a god that would condemn a small sinner (ex; coveted neighbor wife but never act on his instinct, as is his nature) to eternal damnation, but would let a repentant Hitler into heaven.
@moestietabarnak even worst, claiming moral come from god, when god itself is bad enough already, the one of the Old testament is vindictive, sadistic, evil in many place! a quick read of leviticus or deuteronomy show it plainly.
Although, as I re-read your comment, you did say you feel repulsed by it, but that was pretty much cancelled out when you had the temerity to say you MAY...MAY call it evil.
Wowsers!!! I don't say how you cannot say without no reservation that the Holocaust WAS EVIL. Incredibly evil beyond belief.
@Dhorpatan "you had the temerity to say you MAY...MAY call it evil."
'May' because I'm a non-cognitivist as far as evil is concerned, I can express myself more accurately by saying that murder disgusts me.
If it makes you feel better, what you feel towards the holocaust is very likely what i feel towards it. If you prefer to pretend that some spooky metaphysics are involved ('objectively wrong'), knock yourself out. I'm still waiting for a reason to suppose that categorical imperatives exist.
Very well said ... you're one step closer to becoming an atheist! It's only a matter of time :-) (Take that as a compliment!)
On a related topic (to my comment but not your video), have your ever watched Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God"? It's sweet, funny in a self-deprecating way, and unusually powerful (IMHO) in that it contains none of the vitriol that's all too common among atheists—she desperately searches to HOLD ON to her belief.
> I have not seen anything from Sweeney unfortunately
If you ever have the time, I'd be interested in hearing what you think -- /watch?v=Bqh53RCkURQ
My prediction is that you'll find her hard not to like--because she's so damn likeable!--even if you disagree with where she ends up. (NOTE: Sweeney got her start on Saturday Night Live, where she was probably best known for her androgynous role of "Pat").
When one says, "Anything is permissible" I'm bound to ask, "permissible" by whom? Permissible by some given person? By some given group of people? Permissible by everybody? Surely, we'd never have a situation where the unwilling victim of a crime would consider it "permissible" to be assaulted, nor in which a supreme court would consider it permissible to have their rulings violated.
Likewise, it's always *permissible* to do whatever an "ultimate" lawgiver commands.
I think sartre would argue that nobody has the authority to dictate what is permissible. Mr. Ignorant can express his personal opinions about what is permissible or not, and you could get a group of people to do the same thing, but in the absence of objective morality all they are is opinions, and opinions have a truth value of 0. They would all be equally justified in the sense that none are justified at all.
@Epydemic2020 But that position is simply begging the question. It simply "presumes" that there must be an objective and authoritative source for what is "permitted" in order to render permissibility valid or else all permissibility is simple opinion and thus devoid of truth value.
But that's not so. I can say that smoking isn't permitted in my house. You can say, "I ought to be able to smoke in your house." Is that just a matter of opinion?
(cont'd) (2) Are those two viewpoints -- my position in respect to your right to smoke in my house and yours equivalent -- do they have, as Sartre would say -- "equal truth value?"
Hardly. I have certain rights and dominion over my house and what people do in it. I can give people permission to smoke in my house -- or deny it. That stems from the ownership rights I have in respect to my property, Sartre notwithstanding.
It isn't necessary for everyone to agree for something to be true.
(cont'd) (3) In this case, what makes my ability to control smoking in my house true is not its universality, not even the fact that everyone agrees to it, but the fact that I live within a mutually enforced legal framework that grants me rights over property and the ability, through law, to enforce those rights.
Those things are facts - that the laws exist, that they grant rights, that they are enforced - and that thus you can't smoke in my house if I say so.
Right, you can punish certain actions. That still doesn't make anything objectively impermissible. Sartre is not really saying anything controversial here, it is just a tautology. "If objective morality does not exist, nothing is objectively wrong". He is just saying conveying that message in a more poetic way.
@Epydemic2020 But to assert that a given thing, say the Mona Lisa, isn't "objectively beautiful" cannot be the same as saying that, therefore, the Mona Lisa isn't "beautiful' because, in the absence of "objective beauty" there be no such thing as "beauty."
The question is, -- is the concept of "objective beauty" a coherent one. What does it mean that something is "objectively beautiful?" -- Beautiful in the absence of any perceiver or experiencing entity capable of experiencing it?
(cont'd) (2) That would seem to be to be incoherent. Beauty, as I understand the concept, can only exist in relation to minds capable of experiencing concepts such as beauty and ugliness. In the absence of such minds, "beauty" as such does not exist, even if one asserts that things that might be considered beautiful in the presence of such minds did exist.
Likewise, I do not see how morals are conceptual entities that can exist within minds.
(cont'd) (3) How it is coherent to suggest that a strictly conceptual entity has an existence apart from minds capable of conceiving them makes no sense to me.
One can strain the idea of "objectivity" by asserting that things like concepts have an objective existence -- that a "thought," for instance, is an objectively real thing -- but if you go that route you have so subverted the distinction between subjective and objective things as to render the distinction meaningless.
(cont'd) (2a) Sorry - correction -- I do not see how morals are *other* than conceptual entities that can exist within minds. Thus, necessarily not objective. My fault for typing too fast.
@Epydemic2020 I looked at your earlier vid and I'm afraid your argument is deeply flawed. So far as I could see, the point you made came down to this. Aesthetics was simply a matter of preference, where as morality was not - i.e. we might *prefer* thin people over fat people -- that's simply an aesthetic (thus subjective) position, whereas we somehow "know" that we shouldn't torture small children to death, rendering it a moral (thus, objective?) position.
(cont'd) (2) First, what do we do with both individuals and societies (for instance the Aztecs who routinely sacrificed young children by cutting their hearts out) who obviously didn't consider it to be wrong?
There's a big difference between asserting a genuine universal moral position that is actually held by all human beings and essentially claiming a sort of moral high ground from which you get to claim *access* to some objective moral truth that you get to dispense to ignorant humanity.
(cont'd) That is, we need to distinguish between a morality that is descriptive and one that is prescriptive, and so far as I can tell, there is no moral system that is genuinely descriptive -- that simply describes how human beings actually behave toward one another. Rather all of these systems seem designed -- by somebody -- to tell *other people* how they should be behaving toward one another.
(cont'd) (3) So it's clear that every moral code consists of some person or some group of people developing a standard and then telling other people that they ought to be following it.
Only lots of other people don't. And that seems to be true of every moral standard.
Well, if I tell someone that something falls under earth's gravity at sea level at 32 feet per second per second -- that's objective. You don't have to agree with it for it to be true. You can test it and find it to be true.
(cont'd) (4) What is the test that one applies to determine whether an "objective moral truth" is true? Is it objectively true that one should never lie (not ever when the Nazis come searching for the people in your attic?) -- that one should never steal (not ever a crust of bread from a billionaire to save your starving children?).
To answer these questions in any way is to enter into moral argument that not only haven't been resolved but can't be resolved.
(cont'd) (5) One can choose to adopt a moral system that yields a particular answer - one system says that it's okay to lie to save the people in your attic, another says it's not.
What system you pick depends on what you value. "Objective morals" depend upon "objective values" in the world. Is the life of one child equally, more, or less valuable than the life of a thousand children? Does it depend on whose child it is?
What determines the truth value here? God, you, society? What is it?
@prodprod I have a problem with your Aztec example in regards to morality.
Morality, for one, is a human concept. Like love or beauty or all the others. I'm sure you know this. To be moral is a quality decided by a human. In this line of thinking, morality is almost purely a theological concept. It's something someone wrote in a book, like sin. To be moral is to be without sin.
Metaphors lead us to believe moral=good and sin=bad. But the truth is neither is either. They are stand alone...
concepts. Sin is well defined depending on the religion that uses it. Therefore, morality is well defined within each religion.
For example, murder is a sin, as it is written. However god also murders, but his murder is morally justified by the rules of the bible (god cannot sin, only humans can- that's why we need jesus). Likewise, killing children may have been bad in the Aztec culture, *unless* it followed religious guidelines.
humanitarian context. Just like "facts" have no meaning in a theological context.
I think if you want to put it in a humanitarian context (which I think you were, given the baby-killing example; something humans performed in the bible which was not sin but instead moral...so much so that disobeying god would be the true immoral action), you need to speak in terms of "health":
My health, my emotional health, societal health, a healthy relationship, etc. Morality has no meaning.
@Icemario87 If, as you suggest, morals are simply derived from a given person's theological grounding, then they are actually no different from a given person's aesthetic grounding. One happens to belong to a particular aesthetic "school' that defines certain works as having artistic merit and others not. Or one happens to belong to a particular theological "school" -- say Catholicism or Islam, that happens to define certain behaviors as being sinful or meritorious -- or not.
(cont'd) (2) But this is virtually the definition of something that is subjective -- it varies across populations, times, movements, for reasons that are culturally grounded.
You have advanced a particular definition of morality, but it is neither the only nor even the principle definition, which generally refers simply to a standard of "right" human behavior.
There is no particular requirement that the "rightness" be universal or objective, authoritative or anything in particular.
(cont'd) (3) What is clear, though is that for anything to embody a "standard" -- something that a significant number of people are going to agree about, it has to reflect certain qualities that enough members of that group accept as reasonable.
Down through the centuries, it appears that most people in most places have embraced certain things as unacceptable within communities and accepted other things.
(cont'd) (3) On the other hand, most communities used to consider some things as perfectly acceptable, like slavery or the second-class status of women, that virtually no society in the former case and very societies the latter case still consider to be morally acceptable.
Yet presumably the "holy books" from which these believers get their unchanging moral truths haven't changed -- the books that endorsed both these things haven't changed -- only the believers' moral systems have changed.
@prodprod "You have advanced a particular definition of morality, but it is neither the only nor even the principle definition, which generally refers simply to a standard of "right" human behavior.
There is no particular requirement that the "rightness" be universal or objective, authoritative or anything in particular."
I find that a difficult statement to swallow. There is no "standard of 'right' human behavior." Please define "right" in that context. (tbc...)
To me, "right" implies "correct" and "correctness" is absolutely an objective trait. Being correct (hence "right," hence "moral") is not subjective state.
The best standard for human behavior shouldn't be whether a particular behavior is "right" or "correct" or "moral," but rather the question should be whether it is "appropriate", given the circumstances (context).
You can't say that morality is "'right' human behavior" unless you reference something real. The only real thing I can think of that supports a concept of "'right' human behavior" is religious literature.
And you definitely can't say that "rightness" need not be objective. It sure does. You can't be subjectively right about something or subjectively wrong about something.
Behavior is context-sensitive. "Rightness" is a meaningless concept. There's only "appropriateness".
@Icemario87 Religious literature, in the context that you seem to mean is no more "real" in the sense that it references something real, than any other literature is "real." Moby Dick references real things, like Bedford, Massachusetts. The Bible references real things, like Egypt. But when the Bible references "values" and then seeks to enforce them authoritatively, by referencing an "authority" -- the whole matter comes tumbling down.
(cont'd) (2) An "is" cannot justify an "ought" -- and that is true whether the "is" is that my parents exist love me and want to obey their code of conduct or whether the *is* is that a particular god exists and loves me and wants me to obey a code of conduct. So what if my parents -- or a god -- loves me, or created me, or will reward me, or will punish me or wants something from me, or anything else?
These are all "is" statements. How do you get from then to an "ought" statement?
(cont'd) (3) Obviously, one can point to the direction of self-interest. If someone wants you to be good and will beat you up if you won't be, then maybe it's a good idea to be good - but what does that have to do with morality or rightness or anything else? Maybe if somebody wanted you to give them money, or beat somebody else up, or shoot up with heroin and will beat you up if you won't, it might also be a good idea to do it. They might likewise be in your interest but would they be moral?
(con'td) (4) So I do not understand how any moral sense --a sense of right and wrong -- referring to that totality of human activity that has the capacity to help or harm -- can be imposed through mere authority or derived through words written in a book. Nor exactly what, to your mind, would cause some books to be possessed of such authority as opposed to other books -- other than that some people arbitrarily happen to believe them to be so possessed.
(cont'd) (5) If I were to break into your house and beat you up and injured you, (presumably against your will) I have definitely harmed you, and thus *wronged* you. Now, there might be some unstated circumstances, or some moral framework that might justify my actions. Maybe you beat me up, or assaulted my wife. Now we're even. Or maybe somebody told me that he was going to kill you and I persuaded him that if he let me beat you up, he'd spare you, so by beating you up, I saved your life.
(cont'd) (6) But all things being equal, none of us want people busting into our houses and beating us up. Nobody wants people doing anything to us against our will. It is that - our will and our desire for autonomy over our bodies, our minds and our possessions that form the basis of morality. None of us want others to intrude unbidden upon our bodies, our thoughts, or our stuff.
To achieve that, we enter into societies in which we mutually agree to respect our bodies, thoughts, and stuff.
@prodprod Your examples give credence to my point: That there's no real "right" or "wrong;" there are just levels of appropriateness based on the context and judgements are made upon fundamentally limited information.
Some of your examples also fail to take into consideration the concept of "try to take the best course of action given the situation." For example, what (emphasis on) *real* human being would offer to beat up the victim-to-be upon discovering the plans of a premeditated murderer?
@Icemario87 I have no idea what you mean by "real" right or wrong, unless you mean no "objective" right or wrong, or no "absolute objective right or wrong." If the latter, then yes -- I agree that there is no absolute objective right or wrong. Moral principles are not principles of physics like atomic weight or e=mc(squared). But that's not all the same as saying that terms like justice or fairness or injustice or unfairness are terms that we don't understand and recognize.
(cont'd) (2) regarding the example I cited -- that one might inflict a "beating" on a child in order to prevent that child from being killed. You seem strangely skeptical that such a situation might arise in the "real" world or that anyone real might find themselves confronted by a comparable situation. If so, you need to raise your sights in respect this example.
(cont'd) (3) Many thousands of parents choose to subject their children to often agonizing chemotherapy treatments, often with little more than a small chance that it will save them from death by cancer. That isn't even the clear either/or choice that I laid out. The children suffer pain far greater and more prolonged than a mere beating, with no promise from the killer that he will not take them in the end.
Virtually every parent accepts that "offer" on behalf of their dying children.
(cont'd) (3) So all of those people who immediately say, in a knee-jerk fashion, "It's always wrong to torture a child" - well, anyone who's gone through chemotherapy or multiple surgical procedures knows, if one simply looks at it in terms of the pain that it causes, despite all attempts at amelioration - it is as easily as bad as anything that a victim of intentional torture might experience.
So is it wrong to do it? Shouldn't we try to save a child, even if it means torturing her? Or no?
I think it relates to the topic of this video and the main character Altair explains it really well:
"...to recognize that nothing is true and everything is permitted, that laws arise not from divinity, but from reason. I understand now that our creed does not command us to be free; it commands us to be wise."
It's essentially what u said, if everything is permitted, it doesnt mean lawlessness.
While SORT OF getting your point, I think that quote is the worst quote on both rationality and ethics that I have ever heard.
First of all, I do not even know what it MEANS to says "nothing is true."
But one thing it certainly means is that the statement "nothing is true" is false.
Meanwhile "everything is permitted" implies no laws WHATSOEVER. Not laws that arise "from reason," which by definition permit and prohibit if they are laws at all.
@simplic1000 It's totally understandable that u r confused about it. To really get it, u must play the game. Sorry about that.
Basically, the game follows the Hashashin during the Third Crusade and they are atheistic bunch who assassinate corrupt leaders, regardless of religion.
In that context, "Nothing is true" refers to "No religion is true."
"Everything is permitted" is just that; u can do what u want, including murder. However, this phrase does not ACTUALLY mean u can do whatever
@anadus7 (Cont'd) The phrase "does not grant you the freedom to do as you wish, it is a knowledge meant to guide your senses. It expects wisdom" which the protagonist Altair lacks at first b/c he is going arnd killing everyone in his way.
Only when Altair was reformed, he realised that while "everything is permitted", it doesnt mean lawlessness. Indeed, wisdom & reason will form laws. After all, a proper society is beneficial to the survival of man. Hence, the element of self-interest here.
@simplic1000 To be fair to you, the quote is derived from the founder of the Hashashin who uttered it on his deathbed apparently. It's philosophical significance has been debated since.
I guess, the developers of Assassin's Creed are providing one interpretation of "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."
@anadus7 The creation of laws is almost inevitable in the self-interests of individuals and their society. Hence the phrase "everything is permitted" commands one to be wise for if one is unwise, one is likely to pass unwise laws - which is a dime in a dozen during the Middle Ages.
This discussion is completely backwards. It is not considered permissible to act against the norms that society has developed. This is how we interact, and usually don't even think about it.
If one chooses to break with this, one is either considered a criminal, or one does so while arguing that some interpretation of religious scripture allows one to do so.
"Objective morality" is very often used to legitimize selfish motives.
@Siddis33 Interesting perspective. Here's a societal norm under which "everything is permitted" seems like a dumb concept made up by (probably) dumb christians:
A man walks around the mall naked, masturbating and screaming at people.
Do christians really think "everything is permitted" means "total societal behavioral meltdown"? It just seems beyond impossible to me. Might as well talk about fish running out of water.
We shouldn't believe things because of their beneficial consequences? I beg to differ. It is perfectly arguable that we should judge all actions according to their consequences, including belief. Truth is a leading which is useful. I do not fetishize truth into a mania above my purposes.
If objective morality does not exist, all things are permissible? I don't think so. If objective morality does not exist, from whom do you believe you are receiving permission for all things?
@buybuydandavis "If objective morality does not exist, all things are permissible? I don't think so. If objective morality does not exist, from whom do you believe you are receiving permission for all things? "
I think u have misunderstood the sentence here. Precisely because there is no objective morality, we are FREE to do what we want. Figuratively speaking, everything becomes permitted because there are no more constraints.
Of course, in reality, laws (which are subjective) will still arise
@anadus7 I think the believers in objective morality are the ones misunderstanding things.
We are FREE to do what we are ABLE to do, whether or not there is an objective morality.
And it is precisely the figurative metaphor of "permission" which is not apt. Again I ask, if everything is supposedly permitted, from whom do you think you are receiving permission?
@buybuydandavis And again I'd tell u, we are not receiving "permission" from any body. There are no longer any constraints to our action hence we can do everything and anything.
If u think this figurative metaphor is not apt, do u have a better alternative to describe the absence of a objective morality?
@anadus7 Wonderful! Can we then agree that if there has been no permitting, that nothing has been permitted? Can we agree that permission is granted by a permitting subject, and if there is no permitting subject, there can be no permission?
@buybuydandavis tbh there is no point in this. We both subscribe to subjective morality. We're on the same team.
But u r arguing the semantics of "permissible" and, truthfully, I dont really see the significance of such an exercise. I simply fail to see the controversy in saying that "there is no objective morality. Hence, all things are permissible."
@anadus7 How does the non existence of something cause a permission to exist? It doesn't.
The point of the exercise is conceptual clarity, because that is the only way to clear away gibberish. Sloppy language and ill defined concepts are what allows nonsense to exist. When a believer in objective morality achieves conceptual clarity about it, he sees it for the nonsense that it is.
@buybuydandavis I see. Fair enough. But for me, the phrase "All things are permissible" simply means we can do whatever we want. I don't want to go to the semantics route because frankly I don't need to.
To argue against objective morality believers, I'd say even if "everything is permitted", it doesnt necessarily lead to lawlessness and destruction of mankind. Self-interests will give rise to (subjective) laws so that society can function.
Non-existence doesn't cause permission... that would imply there is nothing to grant permission. It is not arguing that If God/objective morality exists we are granted permission.. it argues that if no God/objective morality exists then nothing is objectively impermissible. If there is no objective law, then nothing is objectively impermissible.
@Epydemic2020 Both forbidding and permitting are actions. The lack of forbidding does not imply permitting occurred, anymore than a lack of permitting implies a forbidding occurred.
"All things are permitted" is merely a more convenient way of saying that "moral facts do not exist, and thus humans are not obligated to any external standard of morality." Used in such a manner, it doesn't imply that there is anyone literally "permitting" anything; just that there is no action that humans may perform that is immoral, since all actions are amoral.
@EsseQuamVideri747 Actually, it's not more convenient, because it doesn't mean the same thing. "All things permitted" means "All things are permitted", and not "no moral facts exists", nor "nothing is forbidden", nor "there are no obligations under an external standard of morality". These are all different concepts, and you'll get nothing but confusion if you don't keep them straight.
If you want to be extremely sloppy and have your words have no meaning, I suppose that is up to you.
I agree that it is probably better to be clearer and to avoid confusion. I was merely explaining that the phrase was not used in a manner that supposed an agent.
@buybuydandavis I think that's also a confusion of the specific phrasing used. In a sense, EQV747 is right. For example, "all things permitted" has it's own meaning, taken out of context. But in the context of a christian apologist, it's exchangeable with "anything goes." What if the name of the video was "Anything goes?"
Could you define that phrase at face value? It's almost a better phrase because you must refer to the context to pull any meaning from "anything goes." Yet, they're the same.
@Icemario87 'For example, "all things permitted" has it's own meaning, taken out of context. But in the context of a christian apologist, it's exchangeable with "anything goes."'
So it means something in english, but a christian apologist doesn't mean that when he says it, he means some bit of gibberish - "anything goes".
See my response to EQV747 "Actually, ...", and insert "anything goes" into the list of things "all things are permitted" does not mean, and you've got my response to you.
@buybuydandavis "insert "anything goes" into the list of things "all things are permitted" does not mean, and you've got my response to you."
Boring and useless. It's as if you didn't read my post. To the people who use the idea, they mean the same thing. The fact that you're taking the one phrase at face value, rather than the intended meaning, proves you do not care about achieving mutual understanding.
You may well take "tire" at face value, rather than heed the context of "exhaustion".
@Icemario87 "The fact that you're taking the one phrase at face value, rather than the intended meaning, proves you do not care about achieving mutual understanding."
The fact that you're unconcerned about determining what you actually mean, and finding words that actually mean it, proves you do not care about *personal* understanding, let alone mutual understanding.
Your kinda, sorta, I know what I mean, close enough for government work attitude doesn't cut it in philosophy.
@buybuydandavis It seems like in every post, not just the ones responding to me, your primary goal is to make things more difficult to understand.
It's like you're a a dedicated deconstructionist to the point of absurdity. I said what I meant: you took a phrase away form the words surrounding it, defined it based on the first definition in the dictionary for each word of the phrase, and started a new topic altogether. Useless.
Seems you're the only one who can't grasp "meaning".
One last example since you appear to be especially slow of thought:
An idiom: "He threw me under the bus" or "what's your take on it"
This is you: "'threw under the bus' means 'threw under the bus' not 'betrayal', please be more clear." ..."'take on it' means 'take on it', not 'perspective'"
This is me: "actually it means something different based on the context, you can't just isolate it and explain it."
i.e. Do you study the brain under a microscope or hooked up to an MRI?
@anadus7 You ask for a better alternative to describe the absence of objective morality. I'll suggest instead a little semantic hygiene, particularly appropriate for a believer in subjective morality. Identify the actor of any action. Identify the valuer of any moral valuation.
You can't sensibly identify the absence of X, when X is a bit of nonsense. All you can do is encourage the nonsense afflicted to try and make sense of their nonsense, and show them that they always fail.
"If objective morality does not exist, all things are permissible? I don't think so."
That is a tautology, you can't really disagree w/ a tautology. All it means is that if nothing is objectively moral or immoral, then there is no objectively wrong behavior.
@Epydemic2020 It's not a tautology. "Permissible" means something. It doesn't mean "not objectively wrong." If you wish to say that something is permitted, you should be able to identify who is supplying permission. Who is it?
At least theists can say that God is permitting and not permitting things, and make a lick of sense. But for supposed atheists to be talking about permission is to engage in gibberish until you identify who is doing the permitting.
@bitbutter Yeah, few people ever notice that those who say without god, objective morality does not exist, have never succeeded in showing that with god, objective morality does exist.
The phrase "If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist" has no implication as to whether or not objective morality or God actually exist.
While I do think there is great reason to believe objective morality, proving that isn't necessary to accept the above phrase.
@Epydemic2020 "has no implication as to whether or not objective morality or God actually exist."
That's right. The implication of the phrase 'If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist' is that the existence of a god strengthens the case for the existence of objective morality. It doesn't. There's no reason for theists or atheists to suppose that objective morality exists.
There is reason to think objective morality exists, but the statement "if God does not exist, objective morality does not exist" is not an argument or reason to believe that objective morality exists. The only thing that phrase implies, is that God would be a necessary condition for objective morality. Nothing more, nothing less.
@Dhorpatan "I don't understand how you can say there is no reason for Atheists or Theists to suppose that Objective morality exists."
What reason do you have to suppose that it does?
"So in your view. the Holocaust is not objectively wrong"
Correct. Nothing is objectively wrong in the sense intended here. I feel repulsed by it, and I may call it evil, but i realise that 'evil' in this context is shorthand for: radically at odds with my moral intuitions.
I have to say in all honesty that you saying ("correct, the Holocaust is not objectively wrong" {paraphrased}), makes me lose faith in humanity.
It's just so sad someone would be disgusting enough to say something like that. When innocent children and women were killed in cold blood. I know this means nothing to you, but that really sickens me.
"Because there is nothing that makes it impossible for God's nature to be the standard of objective morality, therefore it is a possible standard."
There's also nothing that makes it impossible for moral facts to 'just exist' as a (rather spooky) part of the universe. There's nothing about positing a god that helps the case for moral realism.
Moral platonism is the closest you can come to moral facts just existing, but that view has fatal flaws. The existence of God is really just taking and fixing the problems with platonism. What the Greeks called "the Good" we point out flaws in and then show how those flaws are fixed if "the Good" is God's nature. I have a vid planned on that topic (but its kinda far down the list of planned vids).
@Epydemic2020 "Moral platonism is the closest you can come to moral facts just existing, but that view has fatal flaws."
I'm curious to hear what you think the flaws are (such that they don't apply to your position). I also wonder how you respond to the claim that 'the good' is simply part of the nature of the universe (which sounds just as unconvincing as claiming that it's part of God's nature, to me).
I wrote out a page of disagreements with moral Platonism, but that page is at my dorm (and I am on spring break). Abstract entities/concepts are not subject to cause and effect, so they cannot cause anything, If Good and evil exists as abstract concept/entities then I have no obligation to follow one than the other, There cannot be a moral hierarchy under Platonism, and there is no reliable account of moral epistemology available to that view. (that's all I can remember atm)
@Epydemic2020 Thanks. To continue the devil's advocacy: What I'm calling 'Moral facts', for want of a better term, are not primarily concepts, they are causally potent aspects of the universe. The mechanism by which they interact with the physical world is unknown.
Epydemic: Have you read Sam Harris' new book? It contends that we can discern objective morality from what promotes the well-being of people in society. I highly recommend it. I would bet you will find it interesting even if you don't ultimately agree with it. It's called "The Moral Landscape."
TML might be a better-than-nothing intro to ethics for someone completely virgin to the topic, but although I agree with Harris in other aspects, this book is not very good. See Massimo Pigliucci's review of it.
I will second Pigliucci here: if you want to learn about ethics, read Michael Sandel's "Justice." Or Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics."
Practical ethics is pretty good; you can definitely tell Singer is a utilitarian. I got a chance to use some of Singer's quotes to argue against a position called rational egoism in a video debate once.
I am working my way through Michael Huemer's "ethical intuitionism" it is pretty good so far. It explains alternative views pretty well.
Yes, I'm a big fan of Singer, and I am a consequentialist. He is the only ethical philosopher who has actually changed my life by convincing me that nonhuman animals are worthy of moral consideration, which led me to stop eating factory-farmed animal products.
I would strongly recommend that you read more about the biases and heuristics program before you endorse intuitionism (ethical or otherwise). Read Tversky & Kahneman's papers, or more accessibly the Lesswrong "sequences."
Yes, I am going for my masters next semester in philosophy and I hope to pursue a doctorate after that. My bachelors is in economics and a minor in philosophy and psychology. Econ and business law helped shape my philosophy ironically, but my real interests lie in philosophy and to some extent psychology.
Yea I picked up that book. I already had a quasi-debate about it with Shwanerd. I have watched all of Sam's speeches on youtube but I haven't finished the book yet, I have been busy. I really hope I can finish it this week, I am on spring break and have set aside 4 books and planned out several youtube vids. I hope I can get it all done. I will have a review/critique after I finish.
I'm another atheist who believes that morality is objective. The fact that humans feel pain and desire freedom makes torture and slavery wrong regardless of what one's culture says.
Cool. Maybe we will have the opportunity to talk about why pain and the desire for freedom are objectively good sometime. I personally don't think naturalism can give an adequate explanation.
Thats an interesting idea. We can see that wasn't the case for people like the ancient Greeks tho. A lot of people believe in objective morality without bothering to think about what possible sources of morality there are.
@Epydemic2020 Just because more than one person has the same subjective belief in their opinion, does not make that opinion objectively moral. Many muslims 'believe' that a woman need be stoned to death in public for adultry. Does that make it objectively moral? It was a popular opinion given authority by words in a book. Morality can not be objective since it is an opinion derived from subjective feelings, even if a large group of people feel it, The dilemma is solved with 'God' authority.
Even the word "permissible" means that someone or some group is making a decision to "permit" an action or not. Which is what actually happens, regardless of whether a God is invoked or not.
I think Sarte is talking about objectively permissible. While any John doe can attempt to make actions "impermissible" He would have equal authority to dictate that those actions are "permissible". Perhaps the term "permissible" generates some confusion on its own.
It may be better to think of it as a tautology. "If objective morality does not exist, then nothing is objectively wrong." That may not be as poetic, but that's the intended meaning.
@Epydemic2020 I agree with that tautology, and you can take the "if's" out and it stands on its own. "Objective morality does not exist and nothing is objectively wrong". I am a humanist, and if anything is wrong, I believe it is wrong based on human traits, human feelings, human needs and agreements between and among humans. The universe can and does "permit" all sorts of horrible things to happen, because it does not care and cannot act to prevent them.
Good video! Sub'd. I think in this debate I shall be on your side against many of my fellow atheists, though I am not sure we will agree on what precisely 'objective' means.
One thing I really appreciate is how you "lowered the stakes" here. It makes for a more productive conversation about morality if both sides realize that incorrect *theorizing* about the nature of morality is not going to make you go on a raping spree (although ideas about ethics do eventually have consequences).
Okay, I'll accept those definitions. Going by them, I would call moral principles contingently objective. I think morality does ultimately have to do with the preferences of conscious beings; but to the extent that those preferences are shared almost universally, we can talk about an objective preference set. This is particularly true the more... primal the preference is. As Trotsky said: "People respond differently to a tickle from a feather, but identically to a red-hot poker."
Faggot.
ChocolateWarship90 5 months ago
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Funny you should mention raping and pillaging as a pastime.
Numbers 31:17-18
17Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves
Now it seems to me raping and pillaging is perfectly acceptable when God commands it. Seems to me you missed a reason people act immorally when you were listing them in your video, i.e. God's command.
Anarchy00094 9 months ago
This is nonsense. I just don't ever see how bringing God into the picture changes anything. First, bringing God in does NOT give you objective morality. I've never seen anyone successfully argue this (see Euthyphro dilemma). Second, even if it did, how are there non-permissible things when objective morality exists? Regardless of objective morality, all things are always permissible. It's not like God enforces his morals.
PainefulMass 10 months ago
@PainefulMass
I have made several videos on the Euthyphro dilemma, as well as videos explaining how God can be the foundation of objective morality (See the debate with schwanerd).
When sartre (an atheist btw) talked about all things being permissible, he was not saying "no group's set of desires or goals are enforced".
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020
People believing in objective morality usually believe it is objectively immoral to kill a child for the wrongdoing of a parent. The biblical god commands this:
"…Kids shall not be put to death for their fathers sins" [Deut 24:16]
The problem with his “objective” morality is that he later commands people to violate the exact objective moral that supposedly originated with him:
"Attack the Amalekites and kill all of their children and babies and animals." [1 Samuel 15:2-4]
exodus21v20 10 months ago
The main problem is that Creatards like WLC and Nephy haven't a clue what Objective is, and are unaware or do not want to admit that an object can consist of more than one part, IE humanity.. Therefor that which benefits Humanity is objectively Moral. The collective term for people who do not realise this is "Fuckwit. As in a Murder of Fuckwits, or a gaggle of Fuckwits. The descriptive presupposition is unimportant as long as you get the proper term Fuckwit into the description.
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
@TheTomtompiper
If you want a definition of objective, check out my video called "objective and subjective defined".
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Doh! No thanks, I'll stick with the real definition of the word.
ob·jec·tive (b-jktv)
adj.
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. See Synonyms at fair1.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.
Humanity is an object, a very complicated on I'll admit, and it may take a while to define it but the fact is it is an object.
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
@TheTomtompiper
I use the real definition lol.
Objective just means mind-independent, while subjective is a product of a mind (like tastes and preferences).
Humans are objects, that is true. But nothing about observing we are objects implies that benefiting humanity is "objectively good". Rocks are objects, that doesn't imply that destroying rocks is objectively bad. You should look up what David Hume (an atheist) calls the "is-ought gap" if you want a more detailed explanation.
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Rocks cannot be destroyed, their matter and energy can only be rearranged therefore your analogy fails on a technicality. Instead we must look at why a rock is a rock, and we find that it is defined by the properties of the rock its "Nature", these are objectively true and are as you say independent of any mind. Now we must look at humanity and ask why it is what it is, and we find that there are behaviors that are inherent to humanity that are properties of its "Nature" QED
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
@TheTomtompiper
Nothing about observing that something exists implies that it is good. When you observe that humans exist... you merely observe that humans exist. That provides no foundation for morality, and makes no statement about what must be good.
"Now we must look at humanity and ask why it is what it is, and we find that there are behaviors that are inherent to humanity that are properties of its 'Nature' QED"
Are you familiar with the naturalistic fallacy?
Epydemic2020 10 months ago
@Epydemic2020 Regarding Hume, he was thinking and writing pre Darwin and pre DNA and if he had the benefit of this knowledge he might have come to a different conclusion. And relying on the subjective assessment of someone from the past seems to me an odd thing to do in pursuit of objective proofs. I instead will use the tools provided by the people who have lived since the mid eighteenth century and have shown time and time again that we are what we are.
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
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@Epydemic2020 Regarding Hume, he was thinking and writing pre Darwin and pre DNA and if he had the benefit of this knowledge he might have come to a different conclusion. And relying on the subjective assessment of someone from the past seems to me an odd thing to do in pursuit of objective proofs. I instead will use the tools provided by the people who have lived since the mid eighteenth century and have shown time and time again that we are what we are.
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
1 of 2
Excellent video! Glad to have finally found an intelligent christian (seems like all the intelligent christians only can stay christians for but so long)! I'm definitely subscribing (my other christian subscriptions are... deplorable).
Anyway, I have a qualm with your use of the word "anarchy." I think you meant to say "social discord" or "chaos." Anarchy actually means "without government" or "without a ruler." Considering the full spectrum of modern societies and the societies...
Icemario87 10 months ago
2 of 2
...that have existed throughout human history and prehistory, one could make the compelling argument that a formal government is more closely associated with social discord than a lack of one.
You used the word at about 1:45.
Rofl @ the hallelujah song segment at the end; your one sentence revision of the bible makes it an infinitely more palatable and pragmatic book! I might even say you should toss out the rest! :P
Icemario87 10 months ago
I agree we shouldn't believe in something based on how benefical it is. I always say comfort does NOT = truth! ;)
julzabro 10 months ago
Interesting. I actually agree with most of this except BELIEF in objective morality does not give one any more incentive to BE moral. As far as IF obj. morality did NOT actually exist, I don't think we can say whether we'd go bananas or even if we'd be as moral as we r today or not. As with intelligence, we r always getting better. If the bars weren't there 4 intelligence or morality, I don't know that our natural propensity would be inclined to growth/improvement.
julzabro 10 months ago
To put simply: no objective morality doesn't mean all things permissible. It means no objective morality.
gatorhighlights4 11 months ago
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@gatorhighlights4 "To put simply: no objective morality doesn't mean all things permissible. It means no objective morality."
Ergo, there's only subjective morality.
Icemario87 10 months ago
Its like babys, when they are born they can smile..even when they have never seen anyone smile before(some are born with eyes still closed) its something we are programed to know.. like dolphis know how to swim the second they are born..most little kids know if they are doing something wrong..like stealing or telling a lie...or good things like trying to help the ones they know...even monkies know when they are doing wrong and good..you see it all the time.. if your smart..you know good is good
RainK9 1 year ago
This is actually very good. My own reaction to the classical "Everything is permissible" is "Permissible by whom?". Clearly in most civilized countries murder is not permissible, but the authority that makes it so is the laws agreed to by people (at least ideally). And given that "divine" concepts are man-made too, there really is no difference. It's just that the authority is narratively ascribed to the different forms of agencies. Ultimately we have no choice but decide what is permissible.
socrates856 1 year ago
@socrates856
I like seeing your through process there.
In the absence of something being justifiably forbidden, it seems all things would be permissible.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
I realize what the phrase is trying to get at, but I've always found the statement "if God doesn't exist, then all things are permissible" to be no more valid than saying "if Barak Obama doesn't exist, then all things are permissible". If they don't exist you can no longer use their natures or consequences only they can enforce to justify why an act is impermissible, but all other people, laws, ideals, desired outcomes, etc. that do not permit that act would still exist just as they did before.
army103 1 year ago
@army103
There is no reason to think barak obama is a necessary condition for objective morality. However, it does make sense for God to be that necessary condition. He is not a contingent human whose existence followed after the existence of objective morality. Plus, morality could be an empty set, that phrase doesn't imply OM actually exists.
I agree w/ the second part of your comment tho.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020
I began with "I realize what the phrase is trying to get at" because I know that to some, morality is defined by how actions relate to the nature of an eternal being. It's easy to see how god's nonexistence would turn morality on its head if that were the case. However, if you accept (as I do) a broader definition of morality rather than a specifically theistic one, god's existence or nonexistence has no more impact on it than the president's.
army103 1 year ago
ok, I was thinking about it a bit, I'm changing my premises.
There is no objective morality, but that doesn't mean all thing are permissible, that mean all thing are possible.
Now, even tho morality is subjective, that doesn't mean you can have any morale you wish, because you are not alone !
Even if you think rapping is cool for you, OTHER don't agree with you. And evolution in society etc. built up a whole hierarchy of morale value. context matter.
p.s: power doesn't mean moral, so no nazi
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@moestietabarnak
"There is no objective morality, but that doesn't mean all thing are permissible, that mean all thing are possible."
lol, that is kinda funny (and insightful) if you know the history of this debate. Sartre quoted Dostoevsky about all things being permissible, except Dostoevsky's original quote was "if God does not exist, all things are possible". Permissible and possible mean the same thing in the context of this debate, they both mean "There is no objectively right behavior".
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 what I don't like is the way deist judges atheist as being immoral because moral require a 'god' to be objective. then without an objective one, you switch to a subjective morality .. which in turn allow any justification as long as it's personal morale and cannot be objectively judged bad or good.
I refuse that simplistic equivocation by postulating that their is a 'greater' moral than the personal one. there social one, 'reason'able one, etc. start with all human are equal..ooc
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@moestietabarnak
I don't think atheists are immoral, nor do I think they can't believe in objective morality, I just think they cannot give an account for how morality is objective.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 yet, we hear some theist making that claim. I don't agree with your definition of objective morality vs subjective, there a in-between. I would say an objective one, but less absolute.
I say reason, society, evolution ... created morale. It's more than the individual but doesn't require a god to make it true. It is less absolute like 'no killing' doesn't apply to animal, their morale is their nature. yet it apply to human, but some situation permit it. etc.
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@moestietabarnak
Reason tells us how to achieve our goals, but it doesn't tell us which goals out to be achieved.
Society is just subjective morality + an appeal to majority.
Evolution is just a biological process. If we deem that as "the good" then we commit the naturalistic fallacy.
I agree that some situations permit killing. I think blanket statements are terrible. I argue for situational ethics. Things are objective good or bad given a specific set of circumstances. for example...
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 society's morality, is not peer pressure but the society need. ex: stealing, is impossible without society, from which can you steal if you are alone? why stealing is wrong, because it affect other, because you don't want other to steal from you; so some moral was created by society need.
Evolution altruism has (is?) been proven as been the result of evolution, start basic help the other in need and he would help you when you'll be in need, increase survival
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 Reason can also tell us which goal by helping deduct grander moral principle from basic moral principle, ex: from the self-preservation to species preservation, to posterity, or, to quote spock, the need of the many out-weight the need of the few. to self-sacrifice.
with reason we can postulate premises : do no harm, graduate: harm one to prevent greater harm, extrapolate: would that be beneficial or detrimental considering all teh consequence.
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 to recap my bigger comment, your three rebuttal are wrong, not addressing the right thing
by society i mean social need not social pressure. (steal, adultery etc are social construct, meaningless for an individual.)
by evolution I don't mean what evolution do is good, but that certain moral value proven to increase survival, thus 'encouraged' by evolution.
by reason, I don't mean how to achieve goal, but how it help define goal.
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
for example...
Killing a non-consenting person solely for entertainment is wrong.
It is highly conditional. If you changed "solely for entertainment" to "in self defense" then you are not refuting objective morality, but merely asking a separate moral question.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
p.s; I despise more when Christian preach virtue then sin and turn around and just forget it because God pardon everything as long as they believe in christ. yet they judges other, I thought their god is supposed to be the judge ? So many hypocrite.
And my morale cannot accept a god that would condemn a small sinner (ex; coveted neighbor wife but never act on his instinct, as is his nature) to eternal damnation, but would let a repentant Hitler into heaven.
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@moestietabarnak even worst, claiming moral come from god, when god itself is bad enough already, the one of the Old testament is vindictive, sadistic, evil in many place! a quick read of leviticus or deuteronomy show it plainly.
ordering genocide, infanticide etc..
moestietabarnak 1 year ago
@bitbutter
Although, as I re-read your comment, you did say you feel repulsed by it, but that was pretty much cancelled out when you had the temerity to say you MAY...MAY call it evil.
Wowsers!!! I don't say how you cannot say without no reservation that the Holocaust WAS EVIL. Incredibly evil beyond belief.
Dhorpatan 1 year ago
@Dhorpatan "you had the temerity to say you MAY...MAY call it evil."
'May' because I'm a non-cognitivist as far as evil is concerned, I can express myself more accurately by saying that murder disgusts me.
If it makes you feel better, what you feel towards the holocaust is very likely what i feel towards it. If you prefer to pretend that some spooky metaphysics are involved ('objectively wrong'), knock yourself out. I'm still waiting for a reason to suppose that categorical imperatives exist.
bitbutter 1 year ago 2
@bitbutter
Just to clarify a bit, you don't have to believe in categorical imperatives to believe in objective morality.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
Very well said ... you're one step closer to becoming an atheist! It's only a matter of time :-) (Take that as a compliment!)
On a related topic (to my comment but not your video), have your ever watched Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God"? It's sweet, funny in a self-deprecating way, and unusually powerful (IMHO) in that it contains none of the vitriol that's all too common among atheists—she desperately searches to HOLD ON to her belief.
ToddAllenGates 1 year ago
@ToddAllenGates
lol, thanks I guess?
I have not seen anything from Sweeney unfortunately.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
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@Epydemic2020
> I have not seen anything from Sweeney unfortunately
If you ever have the time, I'd be interested in hearing what you think -- /watch?v=Bqh53RCkURQ
My prediction is that you'll find her hard not to like--because she's so damn likeable!--even if you disagree with where she ends up. (NOTE: Sweeney got her start on Saturday Night Live, where she was probably best known for her androgynous role of "Pat").
ToddAllenGates 1 year ago
When one says, "Anything is permissible" I'm bound to ask, "permissible" by whom? Permissible by some given person? By some given group of people? Permissible by everybody? Surely, we'd never have a situation where the unwilling victim of a crime would consider it "permissible" to be assaulted, nor in which a supreme court would consider it permissible to have their rulings violated.
Likewise, it's always *permissible* to do whatever an "ultimate" lawgiver commands.
prodprod 1 year ago
@prodprod
I think sartre would argue that nobody has the authority to dictate what is permissible. Mr. Ignorant can express his personal opinions about what is permissible or not, and you could get a group of people to do the same thing, but in the absence of objective morality all they are is opinions, and opinions have a truth value of 0. They would all be equally justified in the sense that none are justified at all.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 But that position is simply begging the question. It simply "presumes" that there must be an objective and authoritative source for what is "permitted" in order to render permissibility valid or else all permissibility is simple opinion and thus devoid of truth value.
But that's not so. I can say that smoking isn't permitted in my house. You can say, "I ought to be able to smoke in your house." Is that just a matter of opinion?
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (2) Are those two viewpoints -- my position in respect to your right to smoke in my house and yours equivalent -- do they have, as Sartre would say -- "equal truth value?"
Hardly. I have certain rights and dominion over my house and what people do in it. I can give people permission to smoke in my house -- or deny it. That stems from the ownership rights I have in respect to my property, Sartre notwithstanding.
It isn't necessary for everyone to agree for something to be true.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (3) In this case, what makes my ability to control smoking in my house true is not its universality, not even the fact that everyone agrees to it, but the fact that I live within a mutually enforced legal framework that grants me rights over property and the ability, through law, to enforce those rights.
Those things are facts - that the laws exist, that they grant rights, that they are enforced - and that thus you can't smoke in my house if I say so.
If you do, I'll kick you out.
prodprod 1 year ago
@prodprod
Right, you can punish certain actions. That still doesn't make anything objectively impermissible. Sartre is not really saying anything controversial here, it is just a tautology. "If objective morality does not exist, nothing is objectively wrong". He is just saying conveying that message in a more poetic way.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 But to assert that a given thing, say the Mona Lisa, isn't "objectively beautiful" cannot be the same as saying that, therefore, the Mona Lisa isn't "beautiful' because, in the absence of "objective beauty" there be no such thing as "beauty."
The question is, -- is the concept of "objective beauty" a coherent one. What does it mean that something is "objectively beautiful?" -- Beautiful in the absence of any perceiver or experiencing entity capable of experiencing it?
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (2) That would seem to be to be incoherent. Beauty, as I understand the concept, can only exist in relation to minds capable of experiencing concepts such as beauty and ugliness. In the absence of such minds, "beauty" as such does not exist, even if one asserts that things that might be considered beautiful in the presence of such minds did exist.
Likewise, I do not see how morals are conceptual entities that can exist within minds.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (3) How it is coherent to suggest that a strictly conceptual entity has an existence apart from minds capable of conceiving them makes no sense to me.
One can strain the idea of "objectivity" by asserting that things like concepts have an objective existence -- that a "thought," for instance, is an objectively real thing -- but if you go that route you have so subverted the distinction between subjective and objective things as to render the distinction meaningless.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (2a) Sorry - correction -- I do not see how morals are *other* than conceptual entities that can exist within minds. Thus, necessarily not objective. My fault for typing too fast.
prodprod 1 year ago
@prodprod
I did a vid showing why I don't think beauty is analogous to morality. IT is called "beauty, morality, apples, and oranges".
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 I looked at your earlier vid and I'm afraid your argument is deeply flawed. So far as I could see, the point you made came down to this. Aesthetics was simply a matter of preference, where as morality was not - i.e. we might *prefer* thin people over fat people -- that's simply an aesthetic (thus subjective) position, whereas we somehow "know" that we shouldn't torture small children to death, rendering it a moral (thus, objective?) position.
Many problems with this.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (2) First, what do we do with both individuals and societies (for instance the Aztecs who routinely sacrificed young children by cutting their hearts out) who obviously didn't consider it to be wrong?
There's a big difference between asserting a genuine universal moral position that is actually held by all human beings and essentially claiming a sort of moral high ground from which you get to claim *access* to some objective moral truth that you get to dispense to ignorant humanity.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) That is, we need to distinguish between a morality that is descriptive and one that is prescriptive, and so far as I can tell, there is no moral system that is genuinely descriptive -- that simply describes how human beings actually behave toward one another. Rather all of these systems seem designed -- by somebody -- to tell *other people* how they should be behaving toward one another.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (3) So it's clear that every moral code consists of some person or some group of people developing a standard and then telling other people that they ought to be following it.
Only lots of other people don't. And that seems to be true of every moral standard.
Well, if I tell someone that something falls under earth's gravity at sea level at 32 feet per second per second -- that's objective. You don't have to agree with it for it to be true. You can test it and find it to be true.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (4) What is the test that one applies to determine whether an "objective moral truth" is true? Is it objectively true that one should never lie (not ever when the Nazis come searching for the people in your attic?) -- that one should never steal (not ever a crust of bread from a billionaire to save your starving children?).
To answer these questions in any way is to enter into moral argument that not only haven't been resolved but can't be resolved.
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) (5) One can choose to adopt a moral system that yields a particular answer - one system says that it's okay to lie to save the people in your attic, another says it's not.
What system you pick depends on what you value. "Objective morals" depend upon "objective values" in the world. Is the life of one child equally, more, or less valuable than the life of a thousand children? Does it depend on whose child it is?
What determines the truth value here? God, you, society? What is it?
prodprod 1 year ago
@prodprod I have a problem with your Aztec example in regards to morality.
Morality, for one, is a human concept. Like love or beauty or all the others. I'm sure you know this. To be moral is a quality decided by a human. In this line of thinking, morality is almost purely a theological concept. It's something someone wrote in a book, like sin. To be moral is to be without sin.
Metaphors lead us to believe moral=good and sin=bad. But the truth is neither is either. They are stand alone...
Icemario87 10 months ago
(con't)
concepts. Sin is well defined depending on the religion that uses it. Therefore, morality is well defined within each religion.
For example, murder is a sin, as it is written. However god also murders, but his murder is morally justified by the rules of the bible (god cannot sin, only humans can- that's why we need jesus). Likewise, killing children may have been bad in the Aztec culture, *unless* it followed religious guidelines.
I think that "morality" has no meaning in a...
Icemario87 10 months ago
(con't 2)
humanitarian context. Just like "facts" have no meaning in a theological context.
I think if you want to put it in a humanitarian context (which I think you were, given the baby-killing example; something humans performed in the bible which was not sin but instead moral...so much so that disobeying god would be the true immoral action), you need to speak in terms of "health":
My health, my emotional health, societal health, a healthy relationship, etc. Morality has no meaning.
Icemario87 10 months ago
@Icemario87 If, as you suggest, morals are simply derived from a given person's theological grounding, then they are actually no different from a given person's aesthetic grounding. One happens to belong to a particular aesthetic "school' that defines certain works as having artistic merit and others not. Or one happens to belong to a particular theological "school" -- say Catholicism or Islam, that happens to define certain behaviors as being sinful or meritorious -- or not.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (2) But this is virtually the definition of something that is subjective -- it varies across populations, times, movements, for reasons that are culturally grounded.
You have advanced a particular definition of morality, but it is neither the only nor even the principle definition, which generally refers simply to a standard of "right" human behavior.
There is no particular requirement that the "rightness" be universal or objective, authoritative or anything in particular.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (3) What is clear, though is that for anything to embody a "standard" -- something that a significant number of people are going to agree about, it has to reflect certain qualities that enough members of that group accept as reasonable.
Down through the centuries, it appears that most people in most places have embraced certain things as unacceptable within communities and accepted other things.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (3) On the other hand, most communities used to consider some things as perfectly acceptable, like slavery or the second-class status of women, that virtually no society in the former case and very societies the latter case still consider to be morally acceptable.
Yet presumably the "holy books" from which these believers get their unchanging moral truths haven't changed -- the books that endorsed both these things haven't changed -- only the believers' moral systems have changed.
prodprod 10 months ago
@prodprod "You have advanced a particular definition of morality, but it is neither the only nor even the principle definition, which generally refers simply to a standard of "right" human behavior.
There is no particular requirement that the "rightness" be universal or objective, authoritative or anything in particular."
I find that a difficult statement to swallow. There is no "standard of 'right' human behavior." Please define "right" in that context. (tbc...)
Icemario87 10 months ago
(cont'd)
To me, "right" implies "correct" and "correctness" is absolutely an objective trait. Being correct (hence "right," hence "moral") is not subjective state.
The best standard for human behavior shouldn't be whether a particular behavior is "right" or "correct" or "moral," but rather the question should be whether it is "appropriate", given the circumstances (context).
Icemario87 10 months ago
(cont'd 2)
So...
You can't say that morality is "'right' human behavior" unless you reference something real. The only real thing I can think of that supports a concept of "'right' human behavior" is religious literature.
And you definitely can't say that "rightness" need not be objective. It sure does. You can't be subjectively right about something or subjectively wrong about something.
Behavior is context-sensitive. "Rightness" is a meaningless concept. There's only "appropriateness".
Icemario87 10 months ago
@Icemario87 Religious literature, in the context that you seem to mean is no more "real" in the sense that it references something real, than any other literature is "real." Moby Dick references real things, like Bedford, Massachusetts. The Bible references real things, like Egypt. But when the Bible references "values" and then seeks to enforce them authoritatively, by referencing an "authority" -- the whole matter comes tumbling down.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (2) An "is" cannot justify an "ought" -- and that is true whether the "is" is that my parents exist love me and want to obey their code of conduct or whether the *is* is that a particular god exists and loves me and wants me to obey a code of conduct. So what if my parents -- or a god -- loves me, or created me, or will reward me, or will punish me or wants something from me, or anything else?
These are all "is" statements. How do you get from then to an "ought" statement?
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (3) Obviously, one can point to the direction of self-interest. If someone wants you to be good and will beat you up if you won't be, then maybe it's a good idea to be good - but what does that have to do with morality or rightness or anything else? Maybe if somebody wanted you to give them money, or beat somebody else up, or shoot up with heroin and will beat you up if you won't, it might also be a good idea to do it. They might likewise be in your interest but would they be moral?
prodprod 10 months ago
(con'td) (4) So I do not understand how any moral sense --a sense of right and wrong -- referring to that totality of human activity that has the capacity to help or harm -- can be imposed through mere authority or derived through words written in a book. Nor exactly what, to your mind, would cause some books to be possessed of such authority as opposed to other books -- other than that some people arbitrarily happen to believe them to be so possessed.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (5) If I were to break into your house and beat you up and injured you, (presumably against your will) I have definitely harmed you, and thus *wronged* you. Now, there might be some unstated circumstances, or some moral framework that might justify my actions. Maybe you beat me up, or assaulted my wife. Now we're even. Or maybe somebody told me that he was going to kill you and I persuaded him that if he let me beat you up, he'd spare you, so by beating you up, I saved your life.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (6) But all things being equal, none of us want people busting into our houses and beating us up. Nobody wants people doing anything to us against our will. It is that - our will and our desire for autonomy over our bodies, our minds and our possessions that form the basis of morality. None of us want others to intrude unbidden upon our bodies, our thoughts, or our stuff.
To achieve that, we enter into societies in which we mutually agree to respect our bodies, thoughts, and stuff.
prodprod 10 months ago
@prodprod Your examples give credence to my point: That there's no real "right" or "wrong;" there are just levels of appropriateness based on the context and judgements are made upon fundamentally limited information.
Some of your examples also fail to take into consideration the concept of "try to take the best course of action given the situation." For example, what (emphasis on) *real* human being would offer to beat up the victim-to-be upon discovering the plans of a premeditated murderer?
Icemario87 10 months ago
@Icemario87 I have no idea what you mean by "real" right or wrong, unless you mean no "objective" right or wrong, or no "absolute objective right or wrong." If the latter, then yes -- I agree that there is no absolute objective right or wrong. Moral principles are not principles of physics like atomic weight or e=mc(squared). But that's not all the same as saying that terms like justice or fairness or injustice or unfairness are terms that we don't understand and recognize.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (2) regarding the example I cited -- that one might inflict a "beating" on a child in order to prevent that child from being killed. You seem strangely skeptical that such a situation might arise in the "real" world or that anyone real might find themselves confronted by a comparable situation. If so, you need to raise your sights in respect this example.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (3) Many thousands of parents choose to subject their children to often agonizing chemotherapy treatments, often with little more than a small chance that it will save them from death by cancer. That isn't even the clear either/or choice that I laid out. The children suffer pain far greater and more prolonged than a mere beating, with no promise from the killer that he will not take them in the end.
Virtually every parent accepts that "offer" on behalf of their dying children.
prodprod 10 months ago
(cont'd) (3) So all of those people who immediately say, in a knee-jerk fashion, "It's always wrong to torture a child" - well, anyone who's gone through chemotherapy or multiple surgical procedures knows, if one simply looks at it in terms of the pain that it causes, despite all attempts at amelioration - it is as easily as bad as anything that a victim of intentional torture might experience.
So is it wrong to do it? Shouldn't we try to save a child, even if it means torturing her? Or no?
prodprod 10 months ago
IIn Assassin's Creed, the Ḥashāshīn have a creed:
"Nothing is true and everything is permitted."
I think it relates to the topic of this video and the main character Altair explains it really well:
"...to recognize that nothing is true and everything is permitted, that laws arise not from divinity, but from reason. I understand now that our creed does not command us to be free; it commands us to be wise."
It's essentially what u said, if everything is permitted, it doesnt mean lawlessness.
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7
While SORT OF getting your point, I think that quote is the worst quote on both rationality and ethics that I have ever heard.
First of all, I do not even know what it MEANS to says "nothing is true."
But one thing it certainly means is that the statement "nothing is true" is false.
Meanwhile "everything is permitted" implies no laws WHATSOEVER. Not laws that arise "from reason," which by definition permit and prohibit if they are laws at all.
Fatuous pseudo-philosophy.
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000 It's totally understandable that u r confused about it. To really get it, u must play the game. Sorry about that.
Basically, the game follows the Hashashin during the Third Crusade and they are atheistic bunch who assassinate corrupt leaders, regardless of religion.
In that context, "Nothing is true" refers to "No religion is true."
"Everything is permitted" is just that; u can do what u want, including murder. However, this phrase does not ACTUALLY mean u can do whatever
(Cont'd)
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7 (Cont'd) The phrase "does not grant you the freedom to do as you wish, it is a knowledge meant to guide your senses. It expects wisdom" which the protagonist Altair lacks at first b/c he is going arnd killing everyone in his way.
Only when Altair was reformed, he realised that while "everything is permitted", it doesnt mean lawlessness. Indeed, wisdom & reason will form laws. After all, a proper society is beneficial to the survival of man. Hence, the element of self-interest here.
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7
Fair enough, I suppose I oughtn't to have taken a quote from a video game so seriously. :)
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000 To be fair to you, the quote is derived from the founder of the Hashashin who uttered it on his deathbed apparently. It's philosophical significance has been debated since.
I guess, the developers of Assassin's Creed are providing one interpretation of "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."
I guess it's one that I am happy to accept.
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7 The creation of laws is almost inevitable in the self-interests of individuals and their society. Hence the phrase "everything is permitted" commands one to be wise for if one is unwise, one is likely to pass unwise laws - which is a dime in a dozen during the Middle Ages.
anadus7 1 year ago
This discussion is completely backwards. It is not considered permissible to act against the norms that society has developed. This is how we interact, and usually don't even think about it.
If one chooses to break with this, one is either considered a criminal, or one does so while arguing that some interpretation of religious scripture allows one to do so.
"Objective morality" is very often used to legitimize selfish motives.
Siddis33 1 year ago
@Siddis33 Interesting perspective. Here's a societal norm under which "everything is permitted" seems like a dumb concept made up by (probably) dumb christians:
A man walks around the mall naked, masturbating and screaming at people.
Do christians really think "everything is permitted" means "total societal behavioral meltdown"? It just seems beyond impossible to me. Might as well talk about fish running out of water.
Icemario87 10 months ago
We shouldn't believe things because of their beneficial consequences? I beg to differ. It is perfectly arguable that we should judge all actions according to their consequences, including belief. Truth is a leading which is useful. I do not fetishize truth into a mania above my purposes.
If objective morality does not exist, all things are permissible? I don't think so. If objective morality does not exist, from whom do you believe you are receiving permission for all things?
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis "If objective morality does not exist, all things are permissible? I don't think so. If objective morality does not exist, from whom do you believe you are receiving permission for all things? "
I think u have misunderstood the sentence here. Precisely because there is no objective morality, we are FREE to do what we want. Figuratively speaking, everything becomes permitted because there are no more constraints.
Of course, in reality, laws (which are subjective) will still arise
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7 I think the believers in objective morality are the ones misunderstanding things.
We are FREE to do what we are ABLE to do, whether or not there is an objective morality.
And it is precisely the figurative metaphor of "permission" which is not apt. Again I ask, if everything is supposedly permitted, from whom do you think you are receiving permission?
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis And again I'd tell u, we are not receiving "permission" from any body. There are no longer any constraints to our action hence we can do everything and anything.
If u think this figurative metaphor is not apt, do u have a better alternative to describe the absence of a objective morality?
For the record, I believe in subjective morality.
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7 Wonderful! Can we then agree that if there has been no permitting, that nothing has been permitted? Can we agree that permission is granted by a permitting subject, and if there is no permitting subject, there can be no permission?
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis tbh there is no point in this. We both subscribe to subjective morality. We're on the same team.
But u r arguing the semantics of "permissible" and, truthfully, I dont really see the significance of such an exercise. I simply fail to see the controversy in saying that "there is no objective morality. Hence, all things are permissible."
anadus7 1 year ago
@anadus7 How does the non existence of something cause a permission to exist? It doesn't.
The point of the exercise is conceptual clarity, because that is the only way to clear away gibberish. Sloppy language and ill defined concepts are what allows nonsense to exist. When a believer in objective morality achieves conceptual clarity about it, he sees it for the nonsense that it is.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis I see. Fair enough. But for me, the phrase "All things are permissible" simply means we can do whatever we want. I don't want to go to the semantics route because frankly I don't need to.
To argue against objective morality believers, I'd say even if "everything is permitted", it doesnt necessarily lead to lawlessness and destruction of mankind. Self-interests will give rise to (subjective) laws so that society can function.
Of course, ur point still has merit.
anadus7 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis
Non-existence doesn't cause permission... that would imply there is nothing to grant permission. It is not arguing that If God/objective morality exists we are granted permission.. it argues that if no God/objective morality exists then nothing is objectively impermissible. If there is no objective law, then nothing is objectively impermissible.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 "Non-existence doesn't cause permission..."
Thank you. Therefore, the nonexistence of objective morality does not cause permission, and cannot cause all things to be permissible.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis
Did you read the rest of my post after that quote?
If nothing is forbidden, then by default all things are permissible.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 Both forbidding and permitting are actions. The lack of forbidding does not imply permitting occurred, anymore than a lack of permitting implies a forbidding occurred.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis
"All things are permitted" is merely a more convenient way of saying that "moral facts do not exist, and thus humans are not obligated to any external standard of morality." Used in such a manner, it doesn't imply that there is anyone literally "permitting" anything; just that there is no action that humans may perform that is immoral, since all actions are amoral.
EsseQuamVideri747 1 year ago
@EsseQuamVideri747 Actually, it's not more convenient, because it doesn't mean the same thing. "All things permitted" means "All things are permitted", and not "no moral facts exists", nor "nothing is forbidden", nor "there are no obligations under an external standard of morality". These are all different concepts, and you'll get nothing but confusion if you don't keep them straight.
If you want to be extremely sloppy and have your words have no meaning, I suppose that is up to you.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis
I agree that it is probably better to be clearer and to avoid confusion. I was merely explaining that the phrase was not used in a manner that supposed an agent.
EsseQuamVideri747 11 months ago
@buybuydandavis I think that's also a confusion of the specific phrasing used. In a sense, EQV747 is right. For example, "all things permitted" has it's own meaning, taken out of context. But in the context of a christian apologist, it's exchangeable with "anything goes." What if the name of the video was "Anything goes?"
Could you define that phrase at face value? It's almost a better phrase because you must refer to the context to pull any meaning from "anything goes." Yet, they're the same.
Icemario87 10 months ago
@Icemario87 "free for all" is another one, e.g.
Icemario87 10 months ago
@Icemario87 'For example, "all things permitted" has it's own meaning, taken out of context. But in the context of a christian apologist, it's exchangeable with "anything goes."'
So it means something in english, but a christian apologist doesn't mean that when he says it, he means some bit of gibberish - "anything goes".
See my response to EQV747 "Actually, ...", and insert "anything goes" into the list of things "all things are permitted" does not mean, and you've got my response to you.
buybuydandavis 10 months ago
@buybuydandavis "insert "anything goes" into the list of things "all things are permitted" does not mean, and you've got my response to you."
Boring and useless. It's as if you didn't read my post. To the people who use the idea, they mean the same thing. The fact that you're taking the one phrase at face value, rather than the intended meaning, proves you do not care about achieving mutual understanding.
You may well take "tire" at face value, rather than heed the context of "exhaustion".
Icemario87 10 months ago
@Icemario87 "The fact that you're taking the one phrase at face value, rather than the intended meaning, proves you do not care about achieving mutual understanding."
The fact that you're unconcerned about determining what you actually mean, and finding words that actually mean it, proves you do not care about *personal* understanding, let alone mutual understanding.
Your kinda, sorta, I know what I mean, close enough for government work attitude doesn't cut it in philosophy.
buybuydandavis 10 months ago
@buybuydandavis It seems like in every post, not just the ones responding to me, your primary goal is to make things more difficult to understand.
It's like you're a a dedicated deconstructionist to the point of absurdity. I said what I meant: you took a phrase away form the words surrounding it, defined it based on the first definition in the dictionary for each word of the phrase, and started a new topic altogether. Useless.
Seems you're the only one who can't grasp "meaning".
Icemario87 10 months ago
@buybuydandavis
One last example since you appear to be especially slow of thought:
An idiom: "He threw me under the bus" or "what's your take on it"
This is you: "'threw under the bus' means 'threw under the bus' not 'betrayal', please be more clear." ..."'take on it' means 'take on it', not 'perspective'"
This is me: "actually it means something different based on the context, you can't just isolate it and explain it."
i.e. Do you study the brain under a microscope or hooked up to an MRI?
Icemario87 10 months ago
@anadus7 You ask for a better alternative to describe the absence of objective morality. I'll suggest instead a little semantic hygiene, particularly appropriate for a believer in subjective morality. Identify the actor of any action. Identify the valuer of any moral valuation.
You can't sensibly identify the absence of X, when X is a bit of nonsense. All you can do is encourage the nonsense afflicted to try and make sense of their nonsense, and show them that they always fail.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis
"If objective morality does not exist, all things are permissible? I don't think so."
That is a tautology, you can't really disagree w/ a tautology. All it means is that if nothing is objectively moral or immoral, then there is no objectively wrong behavior.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 It's not a tautology. "Permissible" means something. It doesn't mean "not objectively wrong." If you wish to say that something is permitted, you should be able to identify who is supplying permission. Who is it?
At least theists can say that God is permitting and not permitting things, and make a lick of sense. But for supposed atheists to be talking about permission is to engage in gibberish until you identify who is doing the permitting.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
"while that whole thing is technically true"
It's not, or at least it's implications are not. There's no reason to believe that objective morality exists _whether or not a god exists_.
bitbutter 1 year ago
@bitbutter Yeah, few people ever notice that those who say without god, objective morality does not exist, have never succeeded in showing that with god, objective morality does exist.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@buybuydandavis
I have a host of vids addressing that objection, it comes up in almost every debate and usually ends up in vids on the euthyphro dilemma.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 There is a huge literature on the subject on both sides. If you have a particular objection you think is cogent, feel free to share it.
buybuydandavis 1 year ago
@bitbutter
The phrase "If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist" has no implication as to whether or not objective morality or God actually exist.
While I do think there is great reason to believe objective morality, proving that isn't necessary to accept the above phrase.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 "has no implication as to whether or not objective morality or God actually exist."
That's right. The implication of the phrase 'If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist' is that the existence of a god strengthens the case for the existence of objective morality. It doesn't. There's no reason for theists or atheists to suppose that objective morality exists.
bitbutter 1 year ago
@bitbutter
There is reason to think objective morality exists, but the statement "if God does not exist, objective morality does not exist" is not an argument or reason to believe that objective morality exists. The only thing that phrase implies, is that God would be a necessary condition for objective morality. Nothing more, nothing less.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 "There is reason to think objective morality exists,"
I haven't heard any such reason yet.
"The only thing that phrase implies, is that God would be a necessary condition for objective morality."
Yes. I believe this is an unwarranted claim. Two part question:
1. What is it about the supposed existence of the biblical god that makes it possible for objective morality to exist?
2. Why should anyone assent to your answer to part 1?
bitbutter 1 year ago
@bitbutter
I don't understand how you can say there is no reason for Atheists or Theists to suppose that Objective morality exists.
So in your view. the Holocaust is not objectively wrong and clearly evil?
Dhorpatan 1 year ago
@Dhorpatan "I don't understand how you can say there is no reason for Atheists or Theists to suppose that Objective morality exists."
What reason do you have to suppose that it does?
"So in your view. the Holocaust is not objectively wrong"
Correct. Nothing is objectively wrong in the sense intended here. I feel repulsed by it, and I may call it evil, but i realise that 'evil' in this context is shorthand for: radically at odds with my moral intuitions.
bitbutter 1 year ago
@bitbutter
I have to say in all honesty that you saying ("correct, the Holocaust is not objectively wrong" {paraphrased}), makes me lose faith in humanity.
It's just so sad someone would be disgusting enough to say something like that. When innocent children and women were killed in cold blood. I know this means nothing to you, but that really sickens me.
Dhorpatan 1 year ago
@bitbutter
1. Have you seen my latest videos arguing about P1 with shwanerd where i eventually go into the euthyphro dilemma?
2. Because there is nothing that makes it impossible for God's nature to be the standard of objective morality, therefore it is a possible standard.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 1. no.
"Because there is nothing that makes it impossible for God's nature to be the standard of objective morality, therefore it is a possible standard."
There's also nothing that makes it impossible for moral facts to 'just exist' as a (rather spooky) part of the universe. There's nothing about positing a god that helps the case for moral realism.
bitbutter 1 year ago 2
@bitbutter
Moral platonism is the closest you can come to moral facts just existing, but that view has fatal flaws. The existence of God is really just taking and fixing the problems with platonism. What the Greeks called "the Good" we point out flaws in and then show how those flaws are fixed if "the Good" is God's nature. I have a vid planned on that topic (but its kinda far down the list of planned vids).
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 "Moral platonism is the closest you can come to moral facts just existing, but that view has fatal flaws."
I'm curious to hear what you think the flaws are (such that they don't apply to your position). I also wonder how you respond to the claim that 'the good' is simply part of the nature of the universe (which sounds just as unconvincing as claiming that it's part of God's nature, to me).
bitbutter 1 year ago
@bitbutter
I wrote out a page of disagreements with moral Platonism, but that page is at my dorm (and I am on spring break). Abstract entities/concepts are not subject to cause and effect, so they cannot cause anything, If Good and evil exists as abstract concept/entities then I have no obligation to follow one than the other, There cannot be a moral hierarchy under Platonism, and there is no reliable account of moral epistemology available to that view. (that's all I can remember atm)
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 Thanks. To continue the devil's advocacy: What I'm calling 'Moral facts', for want of a better term, are not primarily concepts, they are causally potent aspects of the universe. The mechanism by which they interact with the physical world is unknown.
bitbutter 1 year ago
Love your videos please keep em coming
bellaanditsy 1 year ago
@bellaanditsy
I hope to have another out tonight.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
Stop being so correct and logical! You're making me feel stupid.
absb075 1 year ago
@absb075
lol thanks.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
Epydemic: Have you read Sam Harris' new book? It contends that we can discern objective morality from what promotes the well-being of people in society. I highly recommend it. I would bet you will find it interesting even if you don't ultimately agree with it. It's called "The Moral Landscape."
cyxgun 1 year ago
@cyxgun
TML might be a better-than-nothing intro to ethics for someone completely virgin to the topic, but although I agree with Harris in other aspects, this book is not very good. See Massimo Pigliucci's review of it.
I will second Pigliucci here: if you want to learn about ethics, read Michael Sandel's "Justice." Or Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics."
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000
Practical ethics is pretty good; you can definitely tell Singer is a utilitarian. I got a chance to use some of Singer's quotes to argue against a position called rational egoism in a video debate once.
I am working my way through Michael Huemer's "ethical intuitionism" it is pretty good so far. It explains alternative views pretty well.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020
Yes, I'm a big fan of Singer, and I am a consequentialist. He is the only ethical philosopher who has actually changed my life by convincing me that nonhuman animals are worthy of moral consideration, which led me to stop eating factory-farmed animal products.
I would strongly recommend that you read more about the biases and heuristics program before you endorse intuitionism (ethical or otherwise). Read Tversky & Kahneman's papers, or more accessibly the Lesswrong "sequences."
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000
cool, txs
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020
Are you studying/planning to study philosophy?
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000
Yes, I am going for my masters next semester in philosophy and I hope to pursue a doctorate after that. My bachelors is in economics and a minor in philosophy and psychology. Econ and business law helped shape my philosophy ironically, but my real interests lie in philosophy and to some extent psychology.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@cyxgun
Yea I picked up that book. I already had a quasi-debate about it with Shwanerd. I have watched all of Sam's speeches on youtube but I haven't finished the book yet, I have been busy. I really hope I can finish it this week, I am on spring break and have set aside 4 books and planned out several youtube vids. I hope I can get it all done. I will have a review/critique after I finish.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
I'm another atheist who believes that morality is objective. The fact that humans feel pain and desire freedom makes torture and slavery wrong regardless of what one's culture says.
OnionTrollsAlliance 1 year ago
@OnionTrollsAlliance
Cool. Maybe we will have the opportunity to talk about why pain and the desire for freedom are objectively good sometime. I personally don't think naturalism can give an adequate explanation.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
Could you imagine if the concept of 'god' was stamped into humanity just to give 'moral objectivity' some authority
JuSdAt 1 year ago
@JuSdAt
Thats an interesting idea. We can see that wasn't the case for people like the ancient Greeks tho. A lot of people believe in objective morality without bothering to think about what possible sources of morality there are.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 Just because more than one person has the same subjective belief in their opinion, does not make that opinion objectively moral. Many muslims 'believe' that a woman need be stoned to death in public for adultry. Does that make it objectively moral? It was a popular opinion given authority by words in a book. Morality can not be objective since it is an opinion derived from subjective feelings, even if a large group of people feel it, The dilemma is solved with 'God' authority.
JuSdAt 1 year ago
Even the word "permissible" means that someone or some group is making a decision to "permit" an action or not. Which is what actually happens, regardless of whether a God is invoked or not.
dabigq 1 year ago
@dabigq
I think Sarte is talking about objectively permissible. While any John doe can attempt to make actions "impermissible" He would have equal authority to dictate that those actions are "permissible". Perhaps the term "permissible" generates some confusion on its own.
It may be better to think of it as a tautology. "If objective morality does not exist, then nothing is objectively wrong." That may not be as poetic, but that's the intended meaning.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020 I agree with that tautology, and you can take the "if's" out and it stands on its own. "Objective morality does not exist and nothing is objectively wrong". I am a humanist, and if anything is wrong, I believe it is wrong based on human traits, human feelings, human needs and agreements between and among humans. The universe can and does "permit" all sorts of horrible things to happen, because it does not care and cannot act to prevent them.
dabigq 1 year ago
@dabigq
if naturalism is true, I would agree that all things are permissible.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
Good video! Sub'd. I think in this debate I shall be on your side against many of my fellow atheists, though I am not sure we will agree on what precisely 'objective' means.
One thing I really appreciate is how you "lowered the stakes" here. It makes for a more productive conversation about morality if both sides realize that incorrect *theorizing* about the nature of morality is not going to make you go on a raping spree (although ideas about ethics do eventually have consequences).
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000
Cool, it seems we agree almost completely. You may have even said that better than I did.
I did a quick video defining objective and subjective aptly called "objective and subjective defined".
The short version is "objective = mind-independent statements of fact" and "subjective = mind dependent, typically statements of preference"
Epydemic2020 1 year ago
@Epydemic2020
Okay, I'll accept those definitions. Going by them, I would call moral principles contingently objective. I think morality does ultimately have to do with the preferences of conscious beings; but to the extent that those preferences are shared almost universally, we can talk about an objective preference set. This is particularly true the more... primal the preference is. As Trotsky said: "People respond differently to a tickle from a feather, but identically to a red-hot poker."
simplic1000 1 year ago
@simplic1000
If morality is nothing more than the preferences of the majority, then it is subjective.
Epydemic2020 1 year ago