Self-defense does not impose my morals on you,,, Nonsense. The use of force, regarldess of how you pretty it up by calling it self-defense, prevents the other person from acting according to their morality.
My answer: none of my morals put any obligation upon your behavior.
Your morals aren't relevant. The system is the system, regardless how individuals may choose to behave. Your statement simply means: a) you are ignorant of how the atheistic system works, or b) you choose not to exercise an aspect of the atheistic system, or c) you are so inculcated with "Judeo-Christian" morality ("do unto others") that you confuse your ideals with some kind of norm. If you had been raised in another part of the world you might, even now, be preparing to strap a bomb on yourself to blow-up other people. And, by those ligts. you would be acting morally.
If you don't agree to abide by the better laws of the society we all live in, well then, I do have some problems and by calling the police on you, I'll ask the government to enforce the consensus morality that is agreed to by being in a particular society.
So might does make right. For all your talk of consensus, force is your court of last resort. It may not be necessary, and you may personally hope that it isn't necessary, but it stands as an integeral part of your worldview.
We haven't yet begun to explore why I think moral behavior is moral. So far, all I've done is provide some examples of what is and isn't moral in my model.
But you have no universal meta-method to show why your model should be my model, except force. Force may not be necessary, but it is sufficient.
You've interpreted my statements as requiring an external arbiter to determine morality on your own.
I know that you are the sole arbiter of your morality. That's not really interesting. What is interesting is the question of what is sufficient to decide between competing personal opinions.
The moral subjectivist says that he can only be judged in the context of his morality.
There are, at least, two responses to this: 1. Why should I bother judging you by your morality, when I have my own morality by which to judge? 2. Regardless, in the absence of agreement of whose moral system to use, force is sufficient. So your moral system must include, at a minimum, "might makes right". 2a. Note that 2 fails if the individual involved cannot be forced. In which case, all other opinions don't matter at all.
I agree that we will be judged by each other on the common ground between our moral systems and that if you want to be judged on your own morals, it is essential that you participate in the consensus building (one expression of this is law).
Why do I need consesus building if I can impose my morality on you by force? Do you think a team of diplomats would have stopped the aliens in Independence Day?
[... I'm going to skip the rest, not because I don't have an answer, but because it's far more detailed than the current discussion. Needless to say, it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the God revealed in the Bible and the purpose and scope of the covenant made at Sinai...]]
[wrf3] The choice of rationale is by personal preference.
True, but fortunately the different rationales lead, in most real-world cases, to the same answers to basic moral questions.
Convenient, but it avoids the question of how one decides when there is disagreement. That leads to an invariant truth about atheism.
The notions of right and wrong, it turns out, are pretty robust against changes in the used rationale.
I'm not sure I agree with this, but I need time to think about it.
[wrf3] The bigger problem is: who are you to judge God?
Why should God's personal choices be beyond judgement? Because he is assumed to be very powerful? Should I be afraid? Or because He made everything? Should I be in awe? As you yourself pointed out, those features are orthogonal to moral value.
I answered that question elsewhere. But now that you've judged God and found Him wanting, now what? You aren't going to change God, and you aren't going to be happy in His presence. What's left?
C. S. Lewis was quite right when he said that there are only two kinds of people: those who say 'Thy will be done' and those who say 'My will be done'. And they cannot coexist together.
[wrf3] And on what basis will you do so?
I will take utiliarianism as my basis, and will declare that, on this basis, many of God's actions are evidently bad. You are of course free to use another basis. I challenge you to come up with a reasonable definition of "good" which will judge God's actions as good. Except of course the cop-out "it's good because God does it".
Why is that a cop-out, since you just agreed that personal choice is the only basis you have for defining what is good? "It's good because it's follows the principle of utilitarianism" is equivalent to "it's good because it follows a principle I think is good", which is equivalent to "it's good because I say so".
You are being intellectually dishonest in your replies during much of this debate.
You use your itallicized quotes as a platform for response. This has allowed you to repeatedly ignore arguments that, I must assume, you can not refute.
I haven't seen anything that I cannot refute. If you think otherwise, please bring it up and I will directly address it.
This has kept me from jumping into this argument for fear that you will slice up my text and ignore the points that show flaws in your tack.
I've gone ahead and included the entirety of your post.
The irreducable fact is that dieism is also completely based on personal choice and cultural preference in that one must arbitrarily choose one of the many gods presented. Only then is the moral compass of that particular god available.
You'll notice that I have brought up some of the problems with Deism on the side (e.g., "which God", "can God be heard", & etc...). But since my main interest at this time is an exploration of the impact of atheism on morality from first principles, I haven't gone into the other issues. I can, if you want. But there are interesting properties of both systems that are independent of how individual problems are dealt with.
And only after making a choice to... 1) believe in a dieistic universe 2) choose a diety...does one finally arrive in this claim of an external moral framework for the universe.
How can there be an external moral framework if there is no intelligence outside of man which can categorize things along the continuum of good and evil?
You can shout all you want that Atheism implies 'might makes right'. But the athiests here have told you that isn't the case.
They haven't proved their case. One of the more common attempts in trying to find an objective standard for morality is to observe various aspects of behavior and then say that such behavior was determined by evolutionary mechanisms. Therefore, such behavior is good. But this simply begs the question, becasue we have the ability to ignore our wiring.
Another poster tried by saying that neither he nor I would prefer a certain situation and that this shows an objective external standard for behavior. But the problem with this argument (which, I admit, I flubbed in my first response), is that how I may prefer to live does not imply how I think you ought to live. The poster was implicitly claiming that "do unto others" is an objective external standard. But nothing in atheism says that anyone has to prefer to follow this. With the rise of anti-semitism and Islamicism you see blantant exceptions to this rule.
You then say that all their refutations are merely rationalizations - not explanations. All the while you ignore the fact that the dieistic view of morality is a rationalization in exactly the same way.
No, it isn't, because at least in one case there was an external observable event that fits into a consistent framework of relevation from God.
In trying to have it both ways, you have undermined your own intellectual credibility.
Since I haven't even began to talk about Deism, its problems, and potential solutions, I haven't undermined anything. You've simply jumped the gun and assumed how I might respond.
... are no more moral for having the majority or the law on their side.
You're arguing as if there were something external to man that says "this is how you ought to behave". You cannot say that from an atheistic viewpoint.
You've confused atheistic ethics with moral subjectivism. They're not the same.
Indeed they are. For the atheist, how a person ought to behave is how the person thinks he ought to behave based solely on personal preference. There is no other criteria.
It follows then, that you see no need to be moral without someone nearby ready to punish you unless you do the right thing.
Punishment isn't the only motivator for behavior. As a theist, the possibility of punishment doesn't guide my daily choices in the least.
My observation is that many moral statements in the Bible are reprehensible if taken at face value
Assume, for the sake of argument, that the moral statements in the Bible accurately reflect what God says is good and bad. On what basis, then, do you presume to judge God?
No, ethicists usually give much more elaborate reasons, such as "because it leads to the largest amount of happiness for the largest number of people" or "because it will ultimately maximize your personal happiness" or "because every group of free rational and equal agents would agree to these principles" etc.pp.
I said as much. The problem is that all of these elaborate reasons still reduce to personal preference, i.e. one ethicist says "act this way becuse it maximizes happiness", another one will say, "no, act this way because free and rational people agree to this". The choice of rationale is by personal preference. So the question becomes, how do groups with differing preferences decide which is right?
Not to mention the much bigger problem: why should one assume that God's personal notion of "good" agrees with a reasonable human notion of "good"?
The bigger problem is: who are you to judge God? And on what basis will you do so?
I already dealt with this elsewhere. In Deism, might enforces right -- it doesn't make right. God is right, not because of His omnipotence, but because of His self-existence.
If you really mean that, then you would have to say that if the majority got together and decided to kill all the atheists, that they would be morally justified in doing so, And, since atheists are in the minority of the population, it wouldn't hurt the survival of the species (if you want to use that form of utilitarianism).
Do you really agree with this? If so, congraatulations on being a logically consistent atheist.
Do yourself a favor and read up on the game theory argument.
I have.
You won't treat moral arguments so simple, afterwards.
But I won't make them unnecessarily complex, either.
I think you're giving natural selection (both genetic and memetic) short shrift here.
a) The individual desire to survive is still personal preference. Nature doesn't care if any species survive. b) We aren't slaves to our genetics so we are free to accept or reject it as a basis for moral action, and c) The desire that 'I" survive doesn't invariably mean 'I think you ought to survive'. Again, look to the (admittedly contrived) example in another post about the aliens in 'Independence Day'. Suppose they ran Linux and so weren't vulnerable to Goldblum's virus. Would they take into account our desire to survive? I don't think so. So if this is true intra-species, it's hard to see why it isn't true inter-species.
The only thing that makes the moralist's stance more appealing to the Deist's is that a moralist doesn't claim anything about the external world (e.g. "It's right to be good, because God said so"), only about how they should treat one another (e.g. "It's right to be good").
This begs the question of what is good, The correct formulation is that the moralist says "This is good because I/we say it is" while the Deist says, "This is good becasue God says it is." (with the attendant problems of "which God" and "how do you know you heard correctly?")
I am heartened that you agree with my conclusion ("might makes right"), but this is true only in the atheist worldview. For the Deist, might enforces right.
Besides, I don't agree that "might makes right" must be my opinion -- just because I don't think there are some fixed reason for my existence.
You do, unless you can point out a flaw in the argument I presented earlier or you decide that you don't value reason.
I really can't see how you can make claims about my morals if I e.g. don't do the winter blot and accept Oden and Tor as my role models
First, this is an attempt at determining the properties of systems given an atheistic or deistic starting point. I doubt we'll have the time (or room) to go into deistic issues.
Second, if man is all there is, then any claims about another persons moral's are simply the expression of one's opinion. And we know what that's worth.;-)
Third, the issue of items in the Mosaic Law which some may find, shall we say, unpalatable, is a lengthy discussion in itself. Let me just say that I very much disagree with your conclusion. Suppose, just for a thought experiment, that the aliens in "Independence Day" weren't so easily defeated. There utilitarianism is not your utilitarianism. Who are you to say that they are wrong?
What does good mean again in your bible? Well, we can decide properties of systems in general without going in to the specifics of the Bible. In any monotheistic system, good is defined by what God says is good. (The next problem, of couse, is can we know what God says? A Deist, for example, would say 'no', which is a big problem for Deism). It seems to me that a polytheistic system is open to the same issues as the atheistic system, but I haven't given that a lot of thought.
Interesting twist. I think I would rather say, were I to argue from within the atheist worldview, that that there is an inconsistency between the one thing atheist morality must include ("might makes right") and the way atheists actually live. Too, it sets up a bit of cognitive dissonance because something inside me says that "might makes right" really isn't right. I certainly don't want to live that way. One possibility is that perhaps my beginning assumption of atheism might be wrong.;-)
As for (b), utilitiarianism is only one of many rationales for behavior. It's certainly irrelevant when deciding between good and bad. To use the example from another comment, it may be the case that neither you nor I prefer living in a small enclosed area filled with excrement; but that says nothing about whether you or I should take another's personal opinion into account (think "veal", for example of how we are not consistent, at least between species.)
A goal of having joy and loving relationships with other people is objectively better than a goal of living out a short existence in a small box filled with your own excrement.
All your example shows is that you can find two or more people whose subjective personal preferences happen to agree. This doesn't prove objectivity.
Try this: which is better? "Survival of the fittest", "enlightened self-interest", or "love"?
I'm quite happy with my morality and it's utility to me and my family.
And if the Islamicists have their way? What, then, of your morality?
You didn't get my point -- I wasn't talking about personal moral choices.
All choices are personal moral choices -- "this is better than that" is a moral decision.
I argued that game theory seems to be the relevant description of animal(/human) behaviour.
And you confuse 'is' with 'ought'. That (some) people behave this way is not the same thing as whether or not people ought to behave that way. Furthermore, we have the ability to transcend our wiring.
Some goals are objectively better than other goals.
Really? I challenge you to provide an example that stands up under scrutiny. Atheist ethicists have been trying for years and have never succeeded.
A "beneficial outcome" is simply your personal/group opinion of what beneficial happens to be. And utilitarianism as a rationale is also nothing more than personal preference.
The only reason a "thief's morality" appears to be inferior to yours is that the theives haven't yet gained superior force (or haven't found a way to escape being caught). Were I to be only a little cynical, I would argue that the forced redistribution of wealth via excessive taxation is a form of thievery which seems to be doing pretty well for the politicians.
For the Deist, the correct formulation is "might enforces right". That God is the standard of morality (i.e. it is 'his' opinion which has the most weight) is orthogonal to his omnipotence. Only if God could be killed would might factor into the equation.
As for "God is all powerful...", you need to consider the case where you come to acknowledge that God is right (perhaps simply by the ultimate revelation of Himself) before the punishment takes place. In that case, He would be right because He is.
For a good answer, check out game theory in Dawkins' "Selfish Gene", or something. It's probably effective to be quite nice. So it is the logical, selfish, behaviour.
The choice of 'utilitarianism' or 'genetics' is simply a rationalization of personal opinion, i.e. the choosing utilitarianism over something else is solely based on personal preference. And if you choose the 'genetics' route, the proper response is 'what makes your behavior a slave to your genetics?'
As for 'logical, selfish behavior', didn't your mother teach you not to be selfish?
1) All morality is nothing more than personal opinion (since there is nothing outside of man (or God) which says 'ought' instead of 'is'. 2) Therefore, there is nothing other than personal opinion to judge between competing moralities. (All reasoning ends up doing is rationalizing a personal opinion -- put all personal opinions can be rationalized, so reasoning isn't useful). 3) In order to judge between competing moralities, something has to break the vicious cycle of personal opinion. The person or group who can impose their personal opinion on another becomes the adjudicator of moral issues. 4) The least common denominator of imposition of personal opinion is force. The strongest person/group wins.
Trust/friendship amongst thieves, eh? Not necessarily. Instead of 'thieves', think of an elite group.
Depends what you want in your life (i.e. your personal long-term goals).
Right -- your personal opinons. But there is no a priori reason, other than personal opinion, why your opinions should matter to anyone else.
Using force to get your way has substantial negative consequences
It depends on what force is used. Not all force is physical. Brainwashing, for example, would work just as well.
Too, those in your group who agree with your personal opinions would be free to love you, regardless of what the masses think, so you could still have the life you wanted.
In any case, the principle of "might makes right" is foundational to atheism. Fortunately, atheists either don't realize this, don't want to accept this (after all, it intuitively seems wrong), or act inconsistently with their beliefs.
...because it's normal (genetically wired into my brain) to treat other people with respect.
But it's clear that this wiring, if it really exists, can be overridden. So why should you be a slave to your genetics?
Because there are substantial negative consequences to behaving in a way that ignores other people's value.
That's only because you (or your group) aren't the strongest so that you can impose your will with impunity.
Morality is nothing more than personal opinion (for both the Deist and the Atheist). For the Atheist, however, the one absolute that follows from first principles is "might makes right."
A "me, too!" for Canon. Had an Epson and the print-head clogged twice. The first time it was cleaned under warranty. The second time would have cost more than a new printer.
HP's have the print heads in the cartridge which makes them expensive.
Canon print heads can be replaced yourself (although I haven't had to do so). One son has a Canon 920 for college and we have an i560 for home. No regrets.
Clarify (used by our organization for bug tracking) CCM (source code control system) Concur (Web-based, but IE only, expense system tied to AmEx) Our corporate web pages (they even have a check for non-IE browsers which redirect to a "page not found" error)
That's why I run Mac OS X and have a copy of Virtual PC.
Should have hit preview. The second quote should have been Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again too. Who decides?
Heinlein once said, Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
He also wrote, Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
All governments contain the seeds of their own destruction. Personally, I don't think I care how are leaders are elected, as long as they uphold the Constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for the delay...
Self-defense does not impose my morals on you,,,
Nonsense. The use of force, regarldess of how you pretty it up by calling it self-defense, prevents the other person from acting according to their morality.
My answer: none of my morals put any obligation upon your behavior.
Your morals aren't relevant. The system is the system, regardless how individuals may choose to behave. Your statement simply means:
a) you are ignorant of how the atheistic system works, or
b) you choose not to exercise an aspect of the atheistic system, or
c) you are so inculcated with "Judeo-Christian" morality ("do unto others") that you confuse your ideals with some kind of norm. If you had been raised in another part of the world you might, even now, be preparing to strap a bomb on yourself to blow-up other people. And, by those ligts. you would be acting morally.
If you don't agree to abide by the better laws of the society we all live in, well then, I do have some problems and by calling the police on you, I'll ask the government to enforce the consensus morality that is agreed to by being in a particular society.
So might does make right. For all your talk of consensus, force is your court of last resort. It may not be necessary, and you may personally hope that it isn't necessary, but it stands as an integeral part of your worldview.
We haven't yet begun to explore why I think moral behavior is moral. So far, all I've done is provide some examples of what is and isn't moral in my model.
...]]
But you have no universal meta-method to show why your model should be my model, except force. Force may not be necessary, but it is sufficient.
You've interpreted my statements as requiring an external arbiter to determine morality on your own.
I know that you are the sole arbiter of your morality. That's not really interesting. What is interesting is the question of what is sufficient to decide between competing personal opinions.
The moral subjectivist says that he can only be judged in the context of his morality.
There are, at least, two responses to this:
1. Why should I bother judging you by your morality, when I have my own morality by which to judge?
2. Regardless, in the absence of agreement of whose moral system to use, force is sufficient. So your moral system must include, at a minimum, "might makes right".
2a. Note that 2 fails if the individual involved cannot be forced. In which case, all other opinions don't matter at all.
I agree that we will be judged by each other on the common ground between our moral systems and that if you want to be judged on your own morals, it is essential that you participate in the consensus building (one expression of this is law).
Why do I need consesus building if I can impose my morality on you by force? Do you think a team of diplomats would have stopped the aliens in Independence Day?
[... I'm going to skip the rest, not because I don't have an answer, but because it's far more detailed than the current discussion. Needless to say, it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the God revealed in the Bible and the purpose and scope of the covenant made at Sinai
[wrf3] The choice of rationale is by personal preference.
True, but fortunately the different rationales lead, in most real-world cases, to the same answers to basic moral questions.
Convenient, but it avoids the question of how one decides when there is disagreement. That leads to an invariant truth about atheism.
The notions of right and wrong, it turns out, are pretty robust against changes in the used rationale.
I'm not sure I agree with this, but I need time to think about it.
[wrf3] The bigger problem is: who are you to judge God?
Why should God's personal choices be beyond judgement? Because he is assumed to be very powerful? Should I be afraid? Or because He made everything? Should I be in awe? As you yourself pointed out, those features are orthogonal to moral value.
I answered that question elsewhere. But now that you've judged God and found Him wanting, now what? You aren't going to change God, and you aren't going to be happy in His presence. What's left?
C. S. Lewis was quite right when he said that there are only two kinds of people: those who say 'Thy will be done' and those who say 'My will be done'. And they cannot coexist together.
[wrf3] And on what basis will you do so?
I will take utiliarianism as my basis, and will declare that, on this basis, many of God's actions are evidently bad. You are of course free to use another basis. I challenge you to come up with a reasonable definition of "good" which will judge God's actions as good. Except of course the cop-out "it's good because God does it".
Why is that a cop-out, since you just agreed that personal choice is the only basis you have for defining what is good? "It's good because it's follows the principle of utilitarianism" is equivalent to "it's good because it follows a principle I think is good", which is equivalent to "it's good because I say so".
You are being intellectually dishonest in your replies during much of this debate.
... ...does one finally arrive in this claim of an external moral framework for the universe.
You use your itallicized quotes as a platform for response. This has allowed you to repeatedly ignore arguments that, I must assume, you can not refute.
I haven't seen anything that I cannot refute. If you think otherwise, please bring it up and I will directly address it.
This has kept me from jumping into this argument for fear that you will slice up my text and ignore the points that show flaws in your tack.
I've gone ahead and included the entirety of your post.
The irreducable fact is that dieism is also completely based on personal choice and cultural preference in that one must arbitrarily choose one of the many gods presented. Only then is the moral compass of that particular god available.
You'll notice that I have brought up some of the problems with Deism on the side (e.g., "which God", "can God be heard", & etc...). But since my main interest at this time is an exploration of the impact of atheism on morality from first principles, I haven't gone into the other issues. I can, if you want. But there are interesting properties of both systems that are independent of how individual problems are dealt with.
And only after making a choice to
1) believe in a dieistic universe
2) choose a diety
How can there be an external moral framework if there is no intelligence outside of man which can categorize things along the continuum of good and evil?
You can shout all you want that Atheism implies 'might makes right'. But the athiests here have told you that isn't the case.
They haven't proved their case. One of the more common attempts in trying to find an objective standard for morality is to observe various aspects of behavior and then say that such behavior was determined by evolutionary mechanisms. Therefore, such behavior is good. But this simply begs the question, becasue we have the ability to ignore our wiring.
Another poster tried by saying that neither he nor I would prefer a certain situation and that this shows an objective external standard for behavior. But the problem with this argument (which, I admit, I flubbed in my first response), is that how I may prefer to live does not imply how I think you ought to live. The poster was implicitly claiming that "do unto others" is an objective external standard. But nothing in atheism says that anyone has to prefer to follow this. With the rise of anti-semitism and Islamicism you see blantant exceptions to this rule.
You then say that all their refutations are merely rationalizations - not explanations. All the while you ignore the fact that the dieistic view of morality is a rationalization in exactly the same way.
No, it isn't, because at least in one case there was an external observable event that fits into a consistent framework of relevation from God.
In trying to have it both ways, you have undermined your own intellectual credibility.
Since I haven't even began to talk about Deism, its problems, and potential solutions, I haven't undermined anything. You've simply jumped the gun and assumed how I might respond.
... are no more moral for having the majority or the law on their side.
You're arguing as if there were something external to man that says "this is how you ought to behave". You cannot say that from an atheistic viewpoint.
You've confused atheistic ethics with moral subjectivism. They're not the same.
Indeed they are. For the atheist, how a person ought to behave is how the person thinks he ought to behave based solely on personal preference. There is no other criteria.
It follows then, that you see no need to be moral without someone nearby ready to punish you unless you do the right thing.
Punishment isn't the only motivator for behavior. As a theist, the possibility of punishment doesn't guide my daily choices in the least.
My observation is that many moral statements in the Bible are reprehensible if taken at face value
Assume, for the sake of argument, that the moral statements in the Bible accurately reflect what God says is good and bad. On what basis, then, do you presume to judge God?
No, ethicists usually give much more elaborate reasons, such as "because it leads to the largest amount of happiness for the largest number of people" or "because it will ultimately maximize your personal happiness" or "because every group of free rational and equal agents would agree to these principles" etc.pp.
I said as much. The problem is that all of these elaborate reasons still reduce to personal preference, i.e. one ethicist says "act this way becuse it maximizes happiness", another one will say, "no, act this way because free and rational people agree to this". The choice of rationale is by personal preference. So the question becomes, how do groups with differing preferences decide which is right?
Not to mention the much bigger problem: why should one assume that God's personal notion of "good" agrees with a reasonable human notion of "good"?
The bigger problem is: who are you to judge God? And on what basis will you do so?
I already dealt with this elsewhere. In Deism, might enforces right -- it doesn't make right. God is right, not because of His omnipotence, but because of His self-existence.
I accept reality without your teddy bear.
If you really mean that, then you would have to say that if the majority got together and decided to kill all the atheists, that they would be morally justified in doing so, And, since atheists are in the minority of the population, it wouldn't hurt the survival of the species (if you want to use that form of utilitarianism).
Do you really agree with this? If so, congraatulations on being a logically consistent atheist.
Do yourself a favor and read up on the game theory argument.
I have.
You won't treat moral arguments so simple, afterwards.
But I won't make them unnecessarily complex, either.
I think you're giving natural selection (both genetic and memetic) short shrift here.
a) The individual desire to survive is still personal preference. Nature doesn't care if any species survive.
b) We aren't slaves to our genetics so we are free to accept or reject it as a basis for moral action, and
c) The desire that 'I" survive doesn't invariably mean 'I think you ought to survive'. Again, look to the (admittedly contrived) example in another post about the aliens in 'Independence Day'. Suppose they ran Linux and so weren't vulnerable to Goldblum's virus. Would they take into account our desire to survive? I don't think so. So if this is true intra-species, it's hard to see why it isn't true inter-species.
The only thing that makes the moralist's stance more appealing to the Deist's is that a moralist doesn't claim anything about the external world (e.g. "It's right to be good, because God said so"), only about how they should treat one another (e.g. "It's right to be good").
This begs the question of what is good, The correct formulation is that the moralist says "This is good because I/we say it is" while the Deist says, "This is good becasue God says it is." (with the attendant problems of "which God" and "how do you know you heard correctly?")
I am heartened that you agree with my conclusion ("might makes right"), but this is true only in the atheist worldview. For the Deist, might enforces right.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Besides, I don't agree that "might makes right" must be my opinion -- just because I don't think there are some fixed reason for my existence.
;-)
You do, unless you can point out a flaw in the argument I presented earlier or you decide that you don't value reason.
I really can't see how you can make claims about my morals if I e.g. don't do the winter blot and accept Oden and Tor as my role models
First, this is an attempt at determining the properties of systems given an atheistic or deistic starting point. I doubt we'll have the time (or room) to go into deistic issues.
Second, if man is all there is, then any claims about another persons moral's are simply the expression of one's opinion. And we know what that's worth.
Third, the issue of items in the Mosaic Law which some may find, shall we say, unpalatable, is a lengthy discussion in itself. Let me just say that I very much disagree with your conclusion. Suppose, just for a thought experiment, that the aliens in "Independence Day" weren't so easily defeated. There utilitarianism is not your utilitarianism. Who are you to say that they are wrong?
What does good mean again in your bible?
Well, we can decide properties of systems in general without going in to the specifics of the Bible. In any monotheistic system, good is defined by what God says is good. (The next problem, of couse, is can we know what God says? A Deist, for example, would say 'no', which is a big problem for Deism). It seems to me that a polytheistic system is open to the same issues as the atheistic system, but I haven't given that a lot of thought.
Interesting twist. I think I would rather say, were I to argue from within the atheist worldview, that that there is an inconsistency between the one thing atheist morality must include ("might makes right") and the way atheists actually live. Too, it sets up a bit of cognitive dissonance because something inside me says that "might makes right" really isn't right. I certainly don't want to live that way. One possibility is that perhaps my beginning assumption of atheism might be wrong. ;-)
As for (b), utilitiarianism is only one of many rationales for behavior. It's certainly irrelevant when deciding between good and bad. To use the example from another comment, it may be the case that neither you nor I prefer living in a small enclosed area filled with excrement; but that says nothing about whether you or I should take another's personal opinion into account (think "veal", for example of how we are not consistent, at least between species.)
A goal of having joy and loving relationships with other people is objectively better than a goal of living out a short existence in a small box filled with your own excrement.
All your example shows is that you can find two or more people whose subjective personal preferences happen to agree. This doesn't prove objectivity.
Try this: which is better? "Survival of the fittest", "enlightened self-interest", or "love"?
I'm quite happy with my morality and it's utility to me and my family.
And if the Islamicists have their way? What, then, of your morality?
You didn't get my point -- I wasn't talking about personal moral choices.
All choices are personal moral choices -- "this is better than that" is a moral decision.
I argued that game theory seems to be the relevant description of animal(/human) behaviour.
And you confuse 'is' with 'ought'. That (some) people behave this way is not the same thing as whether or not people ought to behave that way. Furthermore, we have the ability to transcend our wiring.
Some goals are objectively better than other goals.
Really? I challenge you to provide an example that stands up under scrutiny. Atheist ethicists have been trying for years and have never succeeded.
A "beneficial outcome" is simply your personal/group opinion of what beneficial happens to be. And utilitarianism as a rationale is also nothing more than personal preference.
The only reason a "thief's morality" appears to be inferior to yours is that the theives haven't yet gained superior force (or haven't found a way to escape being caught). Were I to be only a little cynical, I would argue that the forced redistribution of wealth via excessive taxation is a form of thievery which seems to be doing pretty well for the politicians.
For the Deist, the correct formulation is "might enforces right". That God is the standard of morality (i.e. it is 'his' opinion which has the most weight) is orthogonal to his omnipotence. Only if God could be killed would might factor into the equation.
As for "God is all powerful...", you need to consider the case where you come to acknowledge that God is right (perhaps simply by the ultimate revelation of Himself) before the punishment takes place. In that case, He would be right because He is.
For a good answer, check out game theory in Dawkins' "Selfish Gene", or something. It's probably effective to be quite nice. So it is the logical, selfish, behaviour.
The choice of 'utilitarianism' or 'genetics' is simply a rationalization of personal opinion, i.e. the choosing utilitarianism over something else is solely based on personal preference. And if you choose the 'genetics' route, the proper response is 'what makes your behavior a slave to your genetics?'
As for 'logical, selfish behavior', didn't your mother teach you not to be selfish?
The proof is simple:
1) All morality is nothing more than personal opinion (since there is nothing outside of man (or God) which says 'ought' instead of 'is'.
2) Therefore, there is nothing other than personal opinion to judge between competing moralities. (All reasoning ends up doing is rationalizing a personal opinion -- put all personal opinions can be rationalized, so reasoning isn't useful).
3) In order to judge between competing moralities, something has to break the vicious cycle of personal opinion. The person or group who can impose their personal opinion on another becomes the adjudicator of moral issues.
4) The least common denominator of imposition of personal opinion is force. The strongest person/group wins.
Trust/friendship amongst thieves, eh?
Not necessarily. Instead of 'thieves', think of an elite group.
Depends what you want in your life (i.e. your personal long-term goals).
Right -- your personal opinons. But there is no a priori reason, other than personal opinion, why your opinions should matter to anyone else.
Using force to get your way has substantial negative consequences
It depends on what force is used. Not all force is physical. Brainwashing, for example, would work just as well.
Too, those in your group who agree with your personal opinions would be free to love you, regardless of what the masses think, so you could still have the life you wanted.
In any case, the principle of "might makes right" is foundational to atheism. Fortunately, atheists either don't realize this, don't want to accept this (after all, it intuitively seems wrong), or act inconsistently with their beliefs.
...because it's normal (genetically wired into my brain) to treat other people with respect.
But it's clear that this wiring, if it really exists, can be overridden. So why should you be a slave to your genetics?
Because there are substantial negative consequences to behaving in a way that ignores other people's value.
That's only because you (or your group) aren't the strongest so that you can impose your will with impunity.
Morality is nothing more than personal opinion (for both the Deist and the Atheist). For the Atheist, however, the one absolute that follows from first principles is "might makes right."
For a second there, I though it said LCARS.
A "me, too!" for Canon. Had an Epson and the print-head clogged twice. The first time it was cleaned under warranty. The second time would have cost more than a new printer.
HP's have the print heads in the cartridge which makes them expensive.
Canon print heads can be replaced yourself (although I haven't had to do so). One son has a Canon 920 for college and we have an i560 for home. No regrets.
Clarify (used by our organization for bug tracking)
CCM (source code control system)
Concur (Web-based, but IE only, expense system tied to AmEx)
Our corporate web pages (they even have a check for non-IE browsers which redirect to a "page not found" error)
That's why I run Mac OS X and have a copy of Virtual PC.
Should have hit preview. The second quote should have been Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again too. Who decides?
Heinlein once said, Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
He also wrote, Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
All governments contain the seeds of their own destruction. Personally, I don't think I care how are leaders are elected, as long as they uphold the Constitution.