Catholic v Protestant: Robert George v Cornel West

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
281

Thunder, you didn’t answer my question. You keep talking about morals existing independently of humanity, as if they are tangible objects floating up there outside of our reach, but real all the same. What material are these morals made of? Where do they reside, exactly? I view morals as a value system created by humans, but what is your explanation for these morals? Doesn’t it come down to a value system created by your god? And if so, what makes it any more universal than manmade value systems?

Why is it that you feel comfortable saying someone is wrong for not following civil law, when they disagree with that law? Does majoritarianism provide adequate authority for making that judgment? And if so, aren’t you now practicing moral relativism yourself? What if the majority changes their mind?

You said earlier that people can’t provide a logical argument for love benefiting society. I just called you on it. Are you now saying that society is actually better off if people act selfishly?

282

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

And, to answer you, Sloth; No. The question does not assume a particular end is THE morally correct end. It assumes a particular end to be more beneficial to society than another.
[/quote]

Which assumes that end, beneficial to society, is moral.[/quote]

Huh?

What is the mechanism that makes it moral in this instance?[/quote]

Are we arguing your amorality or forlife’s personal universal morality?[/quote]

We’re arguing the context of the question
[/quote]

Well, the context of the question is that it is a moral good…[/quote]

I hope you’re joking.

283

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

And, to answer you, Sloth; No. The question does not assume a particular end is THE morally correct end. It assumes a particular end to be more beneficial to society than another.
[/quote]

Which assumes that end, beneficial to society, is moral.[/quote]

Huh?

What is the mechanism that makes it moral in this instance?[/quote]

Are we arguing your amorality or forlife’s personal universal morality?[/quote]

We’re arguing the context of the question
[/quote]

Well, the context of the question is that it is a moral good…[/quote]

I hope you’re joking.
[/quote]

I’m dead serious. Please, continue.

284

[quote]kamui wrote:
three different cases :

we value people paying taxes because we make a rational calculus based on our own (individual or collective) interest. that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with morality.

we value the sad beauty of a late Van Gogh because we make an aesthitical evaluation. that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with morality.

we value the smile on the face of our child because we make an emotionnal evaluation. that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with morality.

btw, none of these evaluations are universal de jure (let alone de facto). [/quote]

I never said they were morals. I was pointing out that human attributes like the commitment to civil obedience, the aesthetic enjoyment of a painting, and the love of a child are just as intangible as morals yet nobody would claim they are supernatural. Obviously, people can and do create moral systems. You may not agree their morals are consistent with your concept of universal morality, but you can’t deny that morality can be manmade.

285

[quote]forlife wrote:
but you can’t deny that morality can be manmade. [/quote]

Of course I can. It’s my opinion and how I feel. It therefore exists.

286

except none of these things are intangible. they may be “normal”, statistically prevalent, but they are not universal.

287

I feel the presence of God in mass, prayer, etc. God exists, universally.

288

[quote]forlife wrote:

Thunder, you didn’t answer my question. You keep talking about morals existing independently of humanity, as if they are tangible objects floating up there outside of our reach, but real all the same. What material are these morals made of? Where do they reside, exactly? I view morals as a value system created by humans, but what is your explanation for these morals? Doesn’t it come down to a value system created by your god? And if so, what makes it any more universal than manmade value systems?[/quote]

Asked and answered - I said they exist by and through divinity. They aren’t “tangible” things, and I never said they were.

They exist as Natural Rights - inherent morals that find their derivation in the divine. Pretty un-novel stuff.

What makes it more universal? Enough with the reset button. Because it exists independently of an individual’s belief in it (or not), it is universal. A person may believe it is ok to murder, for example, but a rule independent of their personal persuasion exists that says (and mandates) that they are wrong.

Uh, yeah, asked and answered - not every human choice involves invocation of Natural Rights. I already explained this to you - e.g., no Natural Right defining which side of the road you have to drive on. And yes, properly understood, majoritarianism is a good arbiter for most of those choices. And no, it isn’t moral relativism, because we…wait for it, Forlife…these aren’t morals that exist under the scope of Natural Rights.

No, I never said people can’t provide a logical argument for love benefiting society - I said a logical argument can also be made for selfishness, meanness and exploitation. Logical arguments can be made for both - to which I also noted “so what?”, as in “that can’t possibly resolve the question, since you can have rational bases for opposite conclusions” (which you can).

And, no, you didn’t “call me on it”. Learn to read.

289

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

And, to answer you, Sloth; No. The question does not assume a particular end is THE morally correct end. It assumes a particular end to be more beneficial to society than another.
[/quote]

Which assumes that end, beneficial to society, is moral.[/quote]

Huh?

What is the mechanism that makes it moral in this instance?[/quote]

Are we arguing your amorality or forlife’s personal universal morality?[/quote]

We’re arguing the context of the question
[/quote]

Well, the context of the question is that it is a moral good…[/quote]

I hope you’re joking.
[/quote]

I’m dead serious. Please, continue.[/quote]

Sorry, but I’m gonna’ just agree to disagree with you on this one.

290

forlife,

I’m going to offer that Sloth and Thunder will never grant legitimacy to your position or mine.

They have both expressed repeatedly that the god-made nature of morality is inherent to their position and inherent in all others regardless of the opinion or intent of the arguer. This is not a basis upon which people can have reasonable discourse.

291

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

Sorry, but I’m gonna’ just agree to disagree with you on this one.
[/quote]

Ok.

292

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

And my religion has never discouraged me from healthy inquiry into absolutely anything.[/quote]

And a question:

Does you religion present you with the crucible that you must (through belief or some other form of fealty) submit to the higher authority of your god, or suffer a fate of eternal damnation?[/quote]

I would say of course it does, except for your poor choice of words. I don’t have to submit to any authority. I make a choice whether I want follow that authority or reject it. I can choose whichever fate I want. Or role the dice and hope that I’m right, if I choose not to believe any of it.

However, your question is a red herring. That wasn’t what we were talking about. I said my religion DOES NOT DISCOURAGE inquiry into its own tenets or the natural world. The Catholic Church is perfectly happy with my questioning and picking apart any of its teachings.

293

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

An aside here: the reason I possess a flagrant disdain for religion is that in so many ways it seeks to blunt deep inquisitiveness. Different religions and factions do it to different degrees, but they all ultimately propose an absolutist theory of the universe and demand it be taken on faith… because none of them can prove it otherwise. [/quote]

omg.

Right, you haven’t been doing that at all with your correct-so-long-as-it-fits-into-my-preconceived-evolution-framework conjecturing up to this point, have you?

This has been my point over and over and over.

You have your religion and your absolutes and your stubborn refusal to accept anything that doesn’t fit your worldview just like we do.

And my religion has never discouraged me from healthy inquiry into absolutely anything.[/quote]

Here’s a challenge:

List my absolutes.
[/quote]

Evolution is.
[/quote]

Wrong.

If you provided me with incontrovertible, tangible evidence, now or any time, that evolution was not a reality, then I would discard it as a premise. [/quote]

Like I said, “Evolution is” is your absolute. And you take every single issue we’ve dealt with and jam it into that framework until it damned well fits.

Particularly, those issues that cannot be adequately explained by evolution, you have no problem ascribing to evolution anyway. For example, the evolutionary origin of morals at this point cannot be called anything more than conjecture, but you treat it as an incontrovertible truth, despite the fact that there are only hints and possible evidence for this. And you have to make these massive, Everest to McKinley sized leaps of FAITH to say that the origin of morals is indeed evolution. But you have no problem doing so.

If that’s not the definition of an absolute, then I must be an atheist.

294

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

but you need a supernatural reason to care about “the overall well being of people on the planet” in the first place.
you need, at the very least, to think that humanity’s well being is valuable in itself.
and this is an opinion not a fact, like all qualitative evaluation and all axiological affirmation.
[/quote]

Why can you not care about the overall well being of people on the planet from a selfish perspective? IE; If more people are doing well, then I am likely to benefit from the overall increased quality of life, stability, etc…

This is not supernatural. It’s cognitive, which places it firmly in the realm of nature. [/quote]

Since kamui provided the answer to your question to me about your definition of benefit, I’ll continue from here:

No matter what you do, you are trying to come to a conclusion about the source of morals by smuggling an “ought” into your equation. Why is this so hard for you to see? You can’t break out of the circle. “Ought” assumes something beyond your human (or animal) drives. It assumes something, well, like you said, “better,” or worse, and in this case, you need to adequately explain why YOUR idea somehow carries more authority than Stalin’s who had a whole different idea of the meaning of “selfish,” and “better.”

So go ahead, I want to hear it. How does your selfishness solve this problem?

295

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

And my religion has never discouraged me from healthy inquiry into absolutely anything.[/quote]

And a question:

Does you religion present you with the crucible that you must (through belief or some other form of fealty) submit to the higher authority of your god, or suffer a fate of eternal damnation?[/quote]

I would say of course it does, except for your poor choice of words. I don’t have to submit to any authority. I make a choice whether I want follow that authority or reject it. I can choose whichever fate I want. Or role the dice and hope that I’m right, if I choose not to believe any of it.

However, your question is a red herring. That wasn’t what we were talking about. I said my religion DOES NOT DISCOURAGE inquiry into its own tenets or the natural world. The Catholic Church is perfectly happy with my questioning and picking apart any of its teachings. [/quote]

You know what? On this you’re right… And, i apologize for the red herring.

The point I was leading to is that if you do not accept certain, central tenets of your religion, then that same religion dooms you to eternal damnation. This may not discourage an endless amount of inquiry, but the inquiry ends at that point.

296

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

An aside here: the reason I possess a flagrant disdain for religion is that in so many ways it seeks to blunt deep inquisitiveness. Different religions and factions do it to different degrees, but they all ultimately propose an absolutist theory of the universe and demand it be taken on faith… because none of them can prove it otherwise. [/quote]

omg.

Right, you haven’t been doing that at all with your correct-so-long-as-it-fits-into-my-preconceived-evolution-framework conjecturing up to this point, have you?

This has been my point over and over and over.

You have your religion and your absolutes and your stubborn refusal to accept anything that doesn’t fit your worldview just like we do.

And my religion has never discouraged me from healthy inquiry into absolutely anything.[/quote]

Here’s a challenge:

List my absolutes.
[/quote]

Evolution is.
[/quote]

Wrong.

If you provided me with incontrovertible, tangible evidence, now or any time, that evolution was not a reality, then I would discard it as a premise. [/quote]

Like I said, “Evolution is” is your absolute. And you take every single issue we’ve dealt with and jam it into that framework until it damned well fits.

Particularly, those issues that cannot be adequately explained by evolution, you have no problem ascribing to evolution anyway. For example, the evolutionary origin of morals at this point cannot be called anything more than conjecture, but you treat it as an incontrovertible truth, despite the fact that there are only hints and possible evidence for this. And you have to make these massive, Everest to McKinley sized leaps of FAITH to say that the origin of morals is indeed evolution. But you have no problem doing so.

If that’s not the definition of an absolute, then I must be an atheist.
[/quote]

Let’s look at this objectively for a minute:

If I tell you that I am open to being proven wrong on an issue, and you then accuse me of essentially lying… how do we reasonably converse?

As I mentioned in the other thread, vigorous defense and perception of absolute are different things.

297

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

but you need a supernatural reason to care about “the overall well being of people on the planet” in the first place.
you need, at the very least, to think that humanity’s well being is valuable in itself.
and this is an opinion not a fact, like all qualitative evaluation and all axiological affirmation.
[/quote]

Why can you not care about the overall well being of people on the planet from a selfish perspective? IE; If more people are doing well, then I am likely to benefit from the overall increased quality of life, stability, etc…

This is not supernatural. It’s cognitive, which places it firmly in the realm of nature. [/quote]

Since kamui provided the answer to your question to me about your definition of benefit, I’ll continue from here:

No matter what you do, you are trying to come to a conclusion about the source of morals by smuggling an “ought” into your equation. Why is this so hard for you to see? You can’t break out of the circle. “Ought” assumes something beyond your human (or animal) drives. It assumes something, well, like you said, “better,” or worse, and in this case, you need to adequately explain why YOUR idea somehow carries more authority than Stalin’s who had a whole different idea of the meaning of “selfish,” and “better.”

So go ahead, I want to hear it. How does your selfishness solve this problem? [/quote]

It doesn’t.

There is no ought. In order for there to be an ought, you have to adhere to your philosophy of the origin of morals.

I have explained repeatedly that natural selection is a cold bitch and does not adhere to morality in the sense that you present it. Please, if you wish to understand my position, assume for a minute that there is no morality, that there is only survival or not…

then add on behaviors that adhere to this goal (survival)…

then add on metacognition. Now, you have a situation in which a species (humans) attempts to explain and attache significance to these behaviors…

now you have the “concept” of morality as an adjective not a noun.

298

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

I’m going to offer that Sloth and Thunder will never grant legitimacy to your position or mine.

They have both expressed repeatedly that the god-made nature of morality is inherent to their position and inherent in all others regardless of the opinion or intent of the arguer. This is not a basis upon which people can have reasonable discourse. [/quote]

This entire statement is vacuous. First, it’s not exactly as though you and Forlife are bending over backwards to “grant legitimacy” to mine/Sloth’s position. Second, as for the jibberish in your second paragraph, your “opinion” or “intent” doesn’t drive the debate - because either Sloth and I are right, or we are wrong. It’s your job to say why we are wrong, not ours. We don’t “owe” you correctness if we think our position is right based on (1) arguments supporting our position and (2) arguments undermining yours.

I don’t give a flip what your “intent” is if I think you have the logic and/or meaning wrong.

And as aside, there is a curious trend afoot at PWI: a rash of whining that because someone won’t simply agree to your position, that somehow, some way it must be “unfair” and beyond “reasonable discourse”.

299

Okay,

let me ask you this, Thunder;

Do you think it’s plausible that my position is correct?

300

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

but you need a supernatural reason to care about “the overall well being of people on the planet” in the first place.
you need, at the very least, to think that humanity’s well being is valuable in itself.
and this is an opinion not a fact, like all qualitative evaluation and all axiological affirmation.
[/quote]

Why can you not care about the overall well being of people on the planet from a selfish perspective? IE; If more people are doing well, then I am likely to benefit from the overall increased quality of life, stability, etc…

This is not supernatural. It’s cognitive, which places it firmly in the realm of nature. [/quote]

Since kamui provided the answer to your question to me about your definition of benefit, I’ll continue from here:

No matter what you do, you are trying to come to a conclusion about the source of morals by smuggling an “ought” into your equation. Why is this so hard for you to see? You can’t break out of the circle. “Ought” assumes something beyond your human (or animal) drives. It assumes something, well, like you said, “better,” or worse, and in this case, you need to adequately explain why YOUR idea somehow carries more authority than Stalin’s who had a whole different idea of the meaning of “selfish,” and “better.”

So go ahead, I want to hear it. How does your selfishness solve this problem? [/quote]

It doesn’t.

There is no ought. In order for there to be an ought, you have to adhere to your philosophy of the origin of morals.

I have explained repeatedly that natural selection is a cold bitch and does not adhere to morality in the sense that you present it. Please, if you wish to understand my position, assume for a minute that there is no morality, that there is only survival or not…

then add on behaviors that adhere to this goal (survival)…

then add on metacognition. Now, you have a situation in which a species (humans) attempts to explain and attache significance to these behaviors…

now you have the “concept” of morality as an adjective not a noun.
[/quote]

Sounds great. But if it’s just an adjective, you’re going to have to now explain how the adjective can have any meaning at all, when, by this definition, you can make it mean whatever you want it to mean.

So, when the Nazi’s were stuffing 7 year old Jewish girls into gas chambers, was that immoral?

Is raping a 6 year old boy in the ass immoral?

Is throwing a live asthmatic baby into a pit immoral?

If I can successfully argue that any of these actions serves the overall survival of the species, then are these acts suddenly, by the magic of Evolution, transformed from immoral to moral ones?