1

Joe

Interesting point: except there is a viable natural selection pathway to a given morality, it will not arise and thrive. And, the basic point of the GR is that the WEAKER party in a situation should be treated well -- it is the actor who must imagine himself in the other's shoes and then act as s/he would want to be treated. So, GR is on the face of it indeed counter-NS: it protects the weak from the strong, through using the power of imagination to motivate a sense of mutuality and equity.

But here is the trick: the GR leads to Kant's Categorical Imperative [CI], which is in turn the source of the sustainable development principle:

development initiatives are sustainable if they better meet the needs of this generation [bearing in mind equity], whilst not compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs [i.e. preserving the integrity of the natural and human environments]. [Adapted from Bruntland et al, WCED, 1987.]

Thus, GR/CI is now increasingly recognised as central to our long-term survival. So if the ethics of our survival clash with the dominant story of origins among our decision-makers and decision-influencers, we are in big trouble.

Grace

Gordon

2

Gordon Mullings wrote: Thus, GR/CI is now increasingly recognised as central to our long-term survival. So if the ethics of our survival clash with the dominant story of origins among our decision-makers and decision-influencers, we are in big trouble

Who cares? Nature certainly doesn't care that any species survive; in the long run none will. Survival as a moral norm is nothing more than a rationalization of personal preference as the basis for morality. [And the personal preferences of others can be taken care of by force.]

In any case, this analysis presumes that we are slaves to our genes. If our genes dictate how we behave, then there is no free will. I'm curious as to the position of our naturalist friends on this.

3

That all seems reasonable. To use philosophical shorthand, evolutionary ethics succumbs to the the naturalistic fallacy: you can't identify the good with a non-ethical property.

Theistic ethics inevitably falls prey to the same problem. We call this the euthyphro problem.

In the same way that it's an open question whether adaptive behavior is morally good, it's an open question whether that which God commands is morally good.

The upshot is that morals are either circular or self-grounding.

4

But here is the trick: the GR leads to Kant's Categorical Imperative ...

Kant would be horrified to see his Categorical Imperative given any sort of teleological justification. (Here it is for everyone's benefit: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.")

Because Kant was a strict rationalist, his CI works strictly on rational grounds. The "universal law" is a function of logic, which is easier to see when you consider an example Kant often used: the lying promise. A lying promise, strictly defined, is a contradiction in terms, kind of like saying "four-sided triangle."

Ultimately, Kant's CI fails because moral law, while being rational, is beyond rationality. Not irrational but nonrational.

5

Theistic ethics inevitably falls prey to the same problem. We call this the euthyphro problem.

The Euthyphro Problem doesn't work because it presents a false dichotomy, at least as far as Judeo-Christian ethics are concerned. Basically, the "conundrum" posed is, "Does God will an act because it is good, or is it good because God wills it?"

The correct answer is none of the above. An act is good, and God commands it, becuase it is in accord with His Nature. Lying is wrong, and we're commanded to be truth-tellers, because that is in accord with God's nature. Murder is wrong because it punishes the innocent, which is contrary to God's nature, etc.

6

The ultimate failure of naturalistic ethics is that, while they claim to give seemingly solid grounds for how an individual should act (I don't think they do, by the way, but that's not my point here), they give us no grounds for writing laws nor reasons for condemning the actions of others.

It's one thing to say, "I won't murder"; it's another to say, "You should not murder." To make it just a matter of personal preference or subjective reflex carries no power to command action from others or to sanction them for failure to obey. In the end, you're left with nothing but raw power, one side forcing its will on others--a Darwinian jungle, dare I say.

7

The correct answer is none of the above. An act is good, and God commands it, becuase it is in accord with His Nature.

This is, ultimately, goodness-by-stipulation. It doesn't answer euthyphro so much as shrug and say, 'eh, things that god commands just are good.' It returns to vacuous circularity: god is good, and good is good, ergo what god commands is good.

To make it just a matter of personal preference or subjective reflex carries no power to command action from others or to sanction them for failure to obey.

Inside most Christians is a consequentialist & Rortian postmodern: "Christian ethics are true because they're persuasive." This statement, however, is both empirically false and bad epistemology.

8

jpe wrote: ...it's an open question whether that which God commands is morally good.

I think it's a question that can be answered. All morality is based on personal preference. This is true for you, me, gods (for the polytheist), or God (for the monotheist). Since this is so, for you and me, force is the one thing that can decide between competing moral systems (if you're dead, your preference cannot gainsay mine).

The Christian God, however, cannot be forced. Because He cannot be forced, because He is unique, and because He alone is eternal, His moral system cannot be denied. We, therefore, have no grounds upon which to say to Him, "what You have done is not good".

9

We, therefore, have no grounds upon which to say to Him, "what You have done is not good".

"Good" or "not good" as compared to what? You must first have a concept of straight before you can judge crooked.

10

Because He cannot be forced, because He is unique, and because He alone is eternal, His moral system cannot be denied.

Not true: I can (and many people do) deny His moral system up and down. He's just got the biggest gun.

11

The Christian God, however, cannot be forced. Because He cannot be forced

FWIW, this a good point: choices are only properly moral if they are freely chosen. Kant, Sartre and I agree on this point, and also agree that people actually do reason through choices and freely choose their actions.

Here's my question: in a comment above, you claim that no one is properly moral, since God alone can freely choose. Does this mean that the decision to become Christian isn't, strictly speaking, a choice, and is morally neutral?

In this case, you've committed yourself to the strange proposition that a killer's decision to kill isn't morally wrong. Sounds a little nihilistic to me.

12

I wrote: "We, therefore, have no grounds upon which to say to Him, 'what You have done is not good'."

jpe responded: "Good" or "not good" as compared to what? You must first have a concept of straight before you can judge crooked.

What you have is your conception of good vs. God's. So you are, in effect, judging God by the measure of yourself. That's as good a definition of sin as I've ever come across.

13

jpe wrote: Not true: I can (and many people do) deny His moral system up and down. He's just got the biggest gun.

He doesn't need a gun. He can outlast you, in which case your position becomes irrelevant.

14

I wrote: "The Christian God, however, cannot be forced. Because He cannot be forced..."

jpe replied: FWIW, this a good point: choices are only properly moral if they are freely chosen. Kant, Sartre and I agree on this point, ...

I, however, do not. Long story short, Darth Vader made moral choices, even though, as a character in a story, he doesn't have free will. He is recognized as a villian (at least, until episode 6).

IMO, man is responsible - not because he is free, but by divine fiat.

and also agree that people actually do reason through choices and freely choose their actions.

Take out the word "freely" and I'll agree with you.

Here's my question: in a comment above, you claim that no one is properly moral, since God alone can freely choose.

I claim that morality and freedom are not linked the way you think they are.

Does this mean that the decision to become Christian isn't, strictly speaking, a choice, and is morally neutral?

It is a choice, it just isn't one initiated by the one who converts. It is not morally neutral, since God says that it is a good choice.

In this case, you've committed yourself to the strange proposition that a killer's decision to kill isn't morally wrong. Sounds a little nihilistic to me.

God has decreed that man is responsible for one's own choices.

15

In post #12 I attributed to jpe that which I should have attributed to tom. My apologies.

16

God has decreed that man is responsible for one's own choices.

Let me make sure I understand your point. We're responsible for our actions despite our inability to choose them? Interesting.

17

jpe wrote: Let me make sure I understand your point. We're responsible for our actions despite our inability to choose them? Interesting.

We are not unable to choose, since we make choices. At issue is the degree of freedom. It isn't 0, and it isn't infinite, but I can't be more precise than that. But yes, we are responsible, even though God is sovereign.

18

Greetings, again, Gentlemen [and Ladies]:

I see a considerable back-forth developed overnight.

My $0.02:

1] CI: There were in fact two or three "equivalent" formulations by Kant (I was never able to make coherent sense out of the third one], and the link to the GR comes through strongly in the 2nd: essentially, treat others as ends in themselves, not means to one's own end. That is, do to others as one would be done by: treat them as valuable, independent human beings who exist for their own ends not just as tools to one's own goals. Do as you would be done by/ love thy neighbour as thyself, in short. [As these two paraphrases summarise, the GR also has multiple equivalent formulations, even in Jesus' recorded words. BTW, the GR/CI is of course a matter of general duty; there are special duties too, depending on specific circumstances.]

2] Kant on GR: Yes, Kant would not like to see that link - he despised the GR! But a rule of fundamental equity, benevolence and consistency driven by the intuitive recognition that "all men are created equal, and equaly valuable" is in fact at the root of both principles. Thence, we see the tie to the SD principle and the consequential challenge that our survival in the long run requires actions rooted in a principle that cuts straight across "survival of the fittest" as it is prone to be understood.

3] Is it moral because God commands it, or does God command what is moral? The simplest Christian theistic answer is yes to both: God, as Creator, has a moral character, which is built-in to the created order, that is, the dilemma is a false one. So, underlying dynamics of the GR/CI for instance, are as much a part of the cosmic order as physical order is.

3] Link to worldviews: On such a creation-anchored basis, morality is quite logical and naturally linked to the general structure of the worldview. The sort of incoherence and lack of gounding for morality raised above is relative to naturalistic metaphysics [and to several other systems, mostly dead issues today], not to creation-anchored metaphysics.

4] Roots of Absurdity:

As Jefferson penned for his client, the incipient USA acting though its Congress: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . . that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." That is, one rejects the above on pain of absurdity -- which leads straight to the dilemmas of morality in a world where much of the intelligentsia has bought into an evolutionary materialist view of origins and thence of life, mind and morality. A cosmic accident, an accidental collocation of atoms that somehow by a vast stroke oif luck arrived at biofunctionality and thence mind and so moral questions, but which is doomed to disintegrate at cessation of biological life anyway has no inherent value. Down that road lies the root of more than one holocaust.

5] Freedom & Guilt: Our fundamental moral problem is that we know enough and are free enough to know that we are not living up to what we expect of others -- i.e. we tend to act worse than we know; and yet at least some of the time, we are free enough to do what is right or even beyond mere duty. Thus, WRF3 is dead right that we have more than 0 and less than infinite liberty [and, I add, moral insight], so we know enough and are free enough to stand guilty before our own moral sensibilities, much less God's law.

6] Paul, as ever, is so on target:

RO 2:1 You . . . have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things . . . 3 So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? . . . .

RO 2:5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God "will give to each person according to what he has done." 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

--> In short, the issue is not how much light or moral freedom you have, but what you do with it: God judges us not by our honestly acquired ignorance and behaviour, but -- as vv 7 - 9 undesscores -- by what we know or should know and did not do and refused to turn from: self-seeking, truth-resisting evil and hypocritical behaviour is what condemns us.

--> Francis Schaeffer put it aptly many years ago: imagine a tape recorder around your neck, which automatically tapes every moral judgement we make on other people [or God, too]. Scene 2: we stand before God, and he plays back our moral principles, confessed with our own mouths; contrasting our recorded behaviour. By our own judgements, would we stand justified or condemned?

--> Oddly, from that context too, it seems to me that many Christians have a somewhat sub-biblical understanding here: too often we speak as though God judges people and condemns them for honestly acquired ignorance, rather than for self-seeking and culpable rejection of truth and right one knows or should know. That is manifestly unfair and leads some to rage at such an imagined monster; but they are reacting to a misunderstanding.

Grace open eyes

Gordon

19

PS: To cover a couple of rabbit-trails likely to come up at this point.

Kindly take a look at the summary discussion of the problem of evil in the context of the wider problem of the arguments to/against God, through the link here.

GEM

20

too often we speak as though God judges people and condemns them for honestly acquired ignorance, rather than for self-seeking and culpable rejection of truth and right one knows or should know.

And that, Gordon, is also a good response to the "but what about natives deep in the Amazon who never heard of God" objection.

21

The problem here is that you're trying to examine the Golden Rule in an isolated transaction. What does it benefit organism A to not apply the GR to its brother organism B today? Very little but in the long run A is better off following the Goldon Rule because his fellow organisms do too and if he doesn't then he will be shunned. This would be fine if A had such superior genes that it never needed help but that's rarely the case.

Zog might not be better off today if he refrains from killing Zed and taking his woman after Zed hurt his ankle. In fact Zog's entire life might have been nicer if he had taken advantage of the situation. But the genes that both Zog AND Zed share wouldn't have been better. While Zog might have had a worse life the fact is the Zog & Zed genes have two chances to reproduce because they inclined Zog and Zed to follow the Golden Rule.

In comparision, another species that lacked such an inclination would only have one chance since Zog would have let Zed die rather than helping him out.

22

Boonton wrote: In comparision, another species that lacked such an inclination would only have one chance since Zog would have let Zed die rather than helping him out.

Surely not all species in nature follow the golden rule, do they? Yet they survive.

23

Gorden,

I took a keen interest in what you had to say about Francias Schaeffer becaue I did my master's thesis on him in '85. Looking back at it, I did fairly poor job of summerizing his philosophy, but since this was a secular university, the thesis committee never noticed the difference.

Concerning judgement, I found it interesting that Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, "Neither do I judge you or condemn you, go and sin no more." In today's society they would say that merely identifying her sin was an act of judgement. He acknowledged her sin without condeming her and that was the key difference in what constitutes good or bad judgement. To identify sin is not morally wrong, it is the condemnation of the sinner that is.

Jesus also said, "By what manner you judge you will also be judged." If the hypothetical tape recorder that Schaeffer wrote about were hung around the neck of the African Pigmy or the
New York stockbroker, or the Lebanese antique dealer, the result would be the same. They would all fail miserably if they applied
the same rigid standards to themselves that they judged others by.

By evolutionary standard none of this makes any sense at all.

24

Surely not all species in nature follow the golden rule, do they? Yet they survive.

True, this is where economics is useful. There are many strategies that can work. There are small businesses that fail but others that do great. There are big businesses that fail and others that do great. There are plenty of species that do not employ the Golden Rule but they apply other strategies that humans do not. For example, many species make apply a lot of instinct. Their young are born knowing 99% of what they need to know so they don't need much parenting or help. It works for them but it also limits them in other ways. Humans are very vunerable but they also have intelligence which lets them adapt very well compared to other species.

But before you get to arrogant if you want to keep score the most successful species on earth are bacteria....any rational measure you want to apply...weight, number of individuals, longest run without major changes etc. bacteria has been very successful....most everything else looks like a new fad compared to them!

By evolutionary standard none of this makes any sense at all.

It's interesting that after Joe wrote this post (if you aren't paying attention, Joe isn't giving us new posts but is giving us 'reruns' of what he considers the best of Joe...sigh) he wrote a post noting how 'evolutionary psychology' has come under severe criticism from biologists . On the one hand he trashes 'evolutionary psychology' for being non-scientific and on the other tries to apply evolutionary psychology to disprove evolution...or materialism...or whatever....very very post modern indeed.

25

Hi Terence

Good to hear from you -- How's your volcano these days? [Last night, our update was one of those break bad news gently ones: lava dome growth has evidently doubled to quadrupled in the past week to two weeks, to ~ 2 - 4 m^3/s, more likely the latter from how the MVO Director spoke. Indeed, the "new" message is that we see an episodic behaviour, and repeats are on the cards for the foreseeable future. A few months ago, saying that would bring down on one's head the wrath of the assorted "experts." As of course happened to yours truly.]

On the point: Actually I think hypocritical "condemnation" of the sinner is what is sinful -- i.e. we sinners are in no position to declare judgement and condemnation on our own authority, or we bring condemnation down on ourselves for our hypocrisy. This was of course Schaeffer's exact point. (I think he was a most under-rated philosopher-evangelist-theologian.)

But, for God to judge sin by the standard of justice as exemplified by the one he has revealed to all men by raising from the dead, now, that is a very different story.

In that light, he has sent a plain message/ call/ cpommand to all men: repent. (Indeed, the subtlety in Rom 2 as cited above is that persistence in well-doing implies acknowledging our moral culpability and penitence, coupled to serious and consistent effort to do better by whatever light we have, starting with that candle of the Lord within, i.e. conscience.)

For us to bear witness to that truth is not hypocrisy; but rather part of our own effort to be persistent in well-doing by the light we do have. (And a world now full of self-refutingly intolerant "tolerance" makes no material difference.)

Grace

Gordon

PD I think Joe, along with a lot of other theistic bloggers, is focussed on the Godblogcon just now.

26

Boonton:

It's interesting that after Joe wrote this post (if you aren't paying attention, Joe isn't giving us new posts but is giving us 'reruns' of what he considers the best of Joe...sigh) he wrote a post noting how 'evolutionary psychology' has come under severe criticism from biologists . On the one hand he trashes 'evolutionary psychology' for being non-scientific and on the other tries to apply evolutionary psychology to disprove evolution...or materialism...or whatever....very very post modern indeed.

Not quite: it is very appropriate to point out that one component of a system is at odds with the rest of the system, and that the other parts of they system return the favour. That is, we are looking at evident self-referential inconsistencies, with what that implies: each half refutes the other.

Grace
Gordon

27

The simplest Christian theistic answer is yes to both: God, as Creator, has a moral character, which is built-in to the created order, that is, the dilemma is a false one.

Even if this addressed Euthyphro rather than begging the question (which it does), it wouldn't address the earlier point: whether God thinks X is morally good doesn't answer the question of whether X is morally good. In other words, it still makes (logical) sense to say: well, god thinks X is good, but is it really good?

28

jpe asked: In other words, it still makes (logical) sense to say: well, god thinks X is good, but is it really good?

How do you define good except by individual preference? You can't.

And once you recognize that, then who are we to judge God?

29

Boonton wrote: True, this is where economics is useful. There are many strategies that can work.

So an individual chooses a strategy based on personal preference. Which is what Joe has been saying all along.

Once the truth of this is recognized, then it immediately follows (at least, for the naturalist), that might makes right -- because force trumps personal preference. QED.

30

jpe,
It isn't that God thinks something is good. His character just sets the standard of goodness, His very existance defines what is good.

31

JPE:

I see your response on circularity.

At worldviews level, once we get to core presuppositions, the issue of circularity will come up; it is best addressed through comparative difficulties -- what are the alternatives and where do their relative merits and capacity to handle the hard questions lie?

This is due to the issue of chaining of arguments: why accept A? because of B? Why accept B, C, D all of us live by faith -- whether or not we like to admit it -- the issue is in what, why? [The back-forth that still continues in the Dawkins blooper thread is a telling case in point: http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/001602.html ]

In the case of does God comand what is good or is it good because God [arbitrarily] commands it, the Christian answer is that the dilemma is a false one: God's character is embedded in the cosmos, so what is in part reflects what is good because it is the product of a good Creator.

[That evil exists is here as a parasite on good: perversion to self-seeking ends of what is essentially good, leading to chaos. the Plantinga argument on the deductive and inductive forms of evil build from this point, as previously linked.]

Now, is that Christian position viciously circular?

Not really, once we look at the comparative difficulties on live options:

1] good has sufficient objectivity about it that we can recognise it by the contrast with the consequences of evil. But, even out minds anfd senses and common sense that we use to discern good/evil are -- gifts from God.

2] The alternative, that good is an independent essence, fails to deal with the contingency of hte cosmos as we experience it.

3] The alternative that good is essentially a perception that is subjective fails to deal with the objectivity of good/evil -- what Hitler did is not a matter of perception.

4] The implication that God's standards are arbitrary fails too: the evidence is that good/evil is objectively warranted.

5] That is, God's commands are for our own good in a good world made by a good God -- there is a coherence to good and an incoherence and chaotic nature to evil that are objective: evil is disintegrative and destructive.

Okay, trust that helps clarify.

Grace

Gordon

PS You may find this discussion on ethics useful as a supplement to the above. In particular, it uses the concept of sustainability to show just how objective the distinction between the coherence and enhancing nature of good vs the chaotic and destructive nature of evil is.

32

H'mm

Seems I must have violated a posting rule as some material was suppressed on chaining of arguments:

1] If we accept A, why?

2] becaue of B?

3] But why accept B? because of C, D, . . .

4] So, we have three choices: (1) infinite regress, (2) circularity, (3)stopping at a point of trust without further demand for "proof" in first palusibles, F.

5] but there are alternative sets of such first palusibles, F1, F2. F3, . . .

6] So, we are forced to compare them on merits and difficulties as we ask hard questions, selecting the "best" answer.

7] Thus, in the end, we have worldviews based on core explanatory hypotheses that cannot be proved, but which can be relatively warranted by a process of dialogue and dialectic. [Proofs in the end reduce to explanations relative to core first palusibles, in short.]

Okay, from that point we can go back to the discussion on us al haveing faith points the question is in what, why?

Grace

Gordon

PS I have more details here.

33

(sorry, this post is all over the place, which i take as evidence of my serious state of coffee-less-ness)

2] The alternative, that good is an independent essence, fails to deal with the contingency of hte cosmos as we experience it.

This doesn't cut much ice with me. The empirical facts of the universe may seem contingent, but the laws by which the universe appear (moral laws, logical laws) seem quite necessary. Inasmuch as (2) is an argument from intuition, it doesn't work (is it an argument from intuition? If I'm misreading you, please clarify - it's early, and I haven't had coffee!).

4] So, we have three choices: (1) infinite regress, (2) circularity, (3)stopping at a point of trust without further demand for "proof" in first palusibles, F.

F doesn't strike me as a stopping point, since God must have some good reason for thinking X is wrong. In other words, the chain of reasoning that leads me to think X is wrong will admittedly end up in some circularity or question-begging (on this point, I'm a Kantian: it ends with Reason, which includes the good will*).

This is no less true of God - His reasons, no less than mine, will end in some circularity (althoughI suppose I could adopt your argument that the form of Reason is the form of goodness as such, and therefore isn't circular - that kind of response doesn't strike me as satisfying, though).

[Proofs in the end reduce to explanations relative to core first palusibles, in short.]

Not so much; coherentism, the dominant epistomology of the 20th century, would deny this claim up and down.

34

How do you define good except by individual preference? You can't.

The good is defined by necessarily true and universalizable moral propositions. In other words, I prefer that murder be wrong no more than I prefer that 1+1=2.

The question at bar isn't how I define it, but, as Gordon noted, how I know it's defined as such.

35

blast. sorry about the 1-2-3 posting....i keep forgetting things.

I wrote:

on this point, I'm a Kantian: it ends with Reason, which includes the good will*)

I meant to include footnote *: the Kantian circularity of Reason and good will bears out nicely Foucault's point about the hidden but necessary irrational repression at the heart of the Enlightenment. When Reason grounds politics, morals, and metaphysics, that which is considered unreasonable has to be repressed hard and fast. On this point, I think Foucault has been misunderstood widely - this irrational kernel at the center of Reason isn't necessarily bad, something that should be done away with in a fit of S/M and crazy fetishes. It's just the transcendental grounds of the Enlightenment Project, and any moral evaluation of it is always one more step.

36

I wrote: "How do you define good except by individual preference? You can't."

jpe answered: The good is defined by necessarily true and universalizable moral propositions. In other words, I prefer that murder be wrong no more than I prefer that 1+1=2.

I claim you're making a category error. "Murder is wrong" is not the same thing as "1 + 1 = 2". Arithmetic is objective; morality is subjective.

You can show me that 1 + 1 is 2; you can't show me, for example, that "abortion is x" (pick one of right or wrong). If you could, the argument about this divisive issue (or any other divisive issue) would be over.

37

So an individual chooses a strategy based on personal preference. Which is what Joe has been saying all along.

Not really, there are different strategies that work...there are also many that don't work. If everything worked then no company would ever go out of business. If only one strategy worked then every company in the entire economy would be big, or small, or whatever.

What Joe is really saying is that the Golden Rule is somehow a negative for humans as a species. Is this what he really means? Do you really believe that? I don't think so, I think you'd say the Golden Rule is a pretty good for humans to follow. But if that's the case then right there you have no inconsistency with evolution even if you can come up with examples where following the Golden Rule seems to require an individual to pass up an advantage for himself.

Once the truth of this is recognized, then it immediately follows (at least, for the naturalist), that might makes right -- because force trumps personal preference. QED.

It's pretty dangerous trying to make philsophical assumptions based on scientific theories, especially ones that you've demonstrated a somewhat poor knowledge of. The libraries are littered with moldy texts of wannabe Plato's who thought Einstein's Theory of Relativity or Quantum Mechanics can somehow be applied to ethics, or morality etc.

There is no evidence that the Golden Rule is somehow 'hard wired' into us genetically. Yes it is an idea that has been brought up by more than a few religions and philosophies but it hardly seems like humans instinctively gravitate towards it the way they, say, gravitate towards objects of sexual attraction or instinctual reactions like the rooting reflex in newborns.

However if it is hard wired into humans there is no contradiction with evolution. More than a few species have instincts that lead them to make choices that are bad for the individual but good for the species. Look at insect colonies where individual ants will sacrifice themselves to help the community accomplish something like cross a stream or fight an invader.

If GR isn't hardwired the GR still is quite sensible for reasons that are entirely materialistic. If all you cared about is material well being you would rationally choose to live in a society dedicated to the GR than one dedicated to its opposite.

38

You can show me that 1 + 1 is 2

Not really - it's just analytically true that 1+1=2. You can't convince a skeptic that 1+1=2 if they don't already understand its truth. You'd just note that the person that refuses to believe that 1+1=2 doesn't understand what the signs 1, 2, +, and = mean.

So it is with morality.

39

Quite frankly, it is advantagous for humans to treat others with respect and so it must be equally true for social animals to do the same. Retailiation isn't just a human concept, it happens in the animal kingdom as well... The moral of this is, if I - an undergrad college student - can come up with a simple hypothesis like that without using God as a catch 22 explaination for everything, than so can you! Open your mind a little to science instead of relying on God to solve every little mystery.

40

This Golden Rule does not exist. All that can be said about it is that some people in ideal situations sometimes follow this rule. So the whole discussion is based on a moot point anyway.

41

All:

Several interesting comments. I will take up a few briefly:

1] Sharepoint: This Golden Rule does not exist. All that can be said about it is that some people in ideal situations sometimes follow this rule. So the whole discussion is based on a moot point anyway.

--> the existence issue is of course trivial. But the more interesting is the idea implicit: morality is based on what we typically do. Not so, the whole point of morality is not that we consistently do what we should, but what ought we to do?

--> Given the CONSEQUENCES of the sustainability implications of the GR/CI, it is very very relevant to our survival and thriving as we move into a very seriously challenging future.

2] JPE: This doesn't cut much ice with me. The empirical facts of the universe may seem contingent, but the laws by which the universe appear (moral laws, logical laws) seem quite necessary.

--> the laws of physics/cosmology are very much contingent, e.g. the cosmos-generating parameters -- indeed, that is the context for the finetuning of the cosmos issue that is a major debate on design. in short, we see both the design and hte cosmological argument at work here.

--> Laws of logic and morality etc are possibly necessary in the sense of self-evident: reject them only on pain of absurdities f one form or antother. But that only raises the question: where did we get to such a cosmos?

3] F doesn't strike me as a stopping point, since God must have some good reason for thinking X is wrong. In other words, the chain of reasoning that leads me to think X is wrong will admittedly end up in some circularity or question-begging

--> I have only pointed out that our chains of argument and evidence force us to faith points. To escape circularity of start-points, we have the need to engage comparative difficulties.

--> The explanations in question work via coherence, factual adequacy and elegance of explanation. that is what comnparative difficulties has to address.

BTW Coherence is NOT the single dominant thread of C20 thought, as well.

Grace

Gordon

--> God is a very different issue: he is ultimate reality so he directly knows the actual truth: he has no need to infer up a chain to get there!

4]

42

--> the existence issue is of course trivial. But the more interesting is the idea implicit: morality is based on what we typically do. Not so, the whole point of morality is not that we consistently do what we should, but what ought we to do?

But what is interesting is that the Golden Rule is what we most typically do. We typically do not rob or murder people and we expect others not to rob and murder us. We typically teach our children not to do certain things 'because you wouldn't like that done to you'. We typically enjoy seeing villians in movies receiving what they inflicted on their victims and so on (this of course is a violation of Jesus's 'turn the other cheek' but it nevertheless is a form of the Golden Rule).

Yes we do often see deviations from the Golden Rule but that doesn't alter the fact that the GR (or variations on it) are built into nearly all human societies to one degree or another.

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I wrote: "You can show me that 1 + 1 is 2"

jpe replied: Not really - it's just analytically true that 1+1=2.

You can take one rock, put it next to another rock, and so demonstrate that 1 + 1 = 2. Or, you can pull out your copy of Principia Mathematica and go through that. Regardless of the level of the proof, it is something that can be demonstrated.

You can't convince a skeptic that 1+1=2 if they don't already understand its truth.

So are you classifying me as a skeptic? If morality is truly objective, then all you have to do is at least try to give a demonstration of why (pick divisive issue) is/is not wrong.

You'd just note that the person that refuses to believe that 1+1=2 doesn't understand what the signs 1, 2, +, and = mean.

So it is with morality.

So you continue to claim, but you haven't even begun to offer proof. And there are a number of philosophers who happen to disagree with you. Here are some examples:

We shall find beauty in the final laws of nature, [but] we will find no special status for life or intelligence. A fortiori, we will find no standards of value or morality. -- Steven Weinberg

In his essay entitled Nonmoral Nature, Stephen Gould uses naturalistic observation to argue against the universality of human morality. He examines the debate from all sides and concludes that such concepts cannot realistically apply to nature as it does to man. However, if one examines the works of Charles Darwin, the discrepancies between man and nature begin to disappear. This view suggests that morality is a purely social construct. Proof of such a hypothesis is prevalent in many sources, such as literature or recent history. Following this logic, one must conclude that concepts of good and evil are altogether arbitrary, subjective, and unnatural. -- here

The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote did God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. -- Jean Paul Sarte

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Lets for the sake of argument assume that indeed god does exist and that our superior moral compass is bestowed upon us by him.

In several aspects of life we find god to be very cruel. A tsunami that kills babys in their sleep, a hurricane that kills the elderly and several other disasters that god, if he is on such a moral ground should have prevented.

Humans who dont live a "moral" life are looked down upon by their fellow christians. Yet when god unleashes his irresponsible force we bow down and take it. where is the justification? God must be impeached.

A naturalist is not a nature worshipper. He or she is a realist. One has learn to live life without looking for god or the devil around every corner.

An while i am ranting, there are far better examples of morality in animals that we can ever strive to achieve. So learn to question, dont just believe!

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All:

Several more comments. My own remarks on points of interest:

1] Gunn:

--> You are addressing the problem of evil/pain. It is an old issue, and you should pause to note that all major religions -- as C S Lewis long ago pointed out -- were developed in a world that did not have Chloroform. That is, it is a difficulty for theistic positions, but it is plainly not insuperable, even for highly educated people [the idea that theists are ignoramuses is a blatant prejudice].

--> More interesting is to take a comparative difficulties look at it: you are obviously angry at what you perceive to be evils. Why?

a] On evolutionatry materialist premises, you are just an accident in the chaos your brain deludes you is a cosmos; so "evil" is just another delusion. So, why are you angry? Why do you think there is "good" and that you somehow "deserve" it? In short, you have the problem of good: your intuition tells you one thing, your premises another: whose report will you believe, why?

b] On pantheistic premises, evil is -- generally speaking -- an illusion, or simply one manifestation of the common underlying whole that is reality. there can be no fundamental distinction such as good/evil, as "two is th enumber of error." As Francis Schaeffer described, in one of his seminars, a very articulate Hindu was calmly saying there is not good/evil distinction that is fundamental; then he paused to see his host with a kettle of boiling water over his head and tipping to the point of nearly pouring. What are you doing? "There is not good/evil." In short, monism ends up with the same gap as materialism [which is indeed a form of monism: reduction of everything to one thing.] So, again, you have a problem of good.

c] On theistic premises, evil is a problem indeed, but it is also significant: that is, our intuition that GOOD and EVIL exist and are important makes sense. Classically, evil exists as a deprivation or perversion of what is fundamentally good; especially through selfishness -- but in a context where moral freedom opens up the possibility of the highest goods, i.e. virtues such as love, selflessness etc. Also, there has been some significant progress on handling the issue in the past 30+ years, through Plantinga's work.

--> I suggest you read the quick review on the issue here, which was previously linked, then come back with further remarks.

2] Boonton: what is interesting is that the Golden Rule is what we most typically do. We typically do not rob or murder people and we expect others not to rob and murder us. We typically teach our children not to do certain things 'because you wouldn't like that done to you'. We typically enjoy seeing villians in movies receiving what they inflicted on their victims and so on (this of course is a violation of Jesus's 'turn the other cheek' but it nevertheless is a form of the Golden Rule).

--> Well, well, a case where B and I are in general agreement! (Of course, we need to dig a little deeper to ask whence cometh the concept of mutual respect in a world where people are just accidents thrown out by the fundamental chaos of the universe; that is, subjective values vs objective VALUE that attaches ot one who is a Creature endowed with a certain dignity and unalienable rights.)

--> I should add another pauline insight on the underlying dynamics at work, before addressing the point of clarification:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

--> Here we see a key dynamic: love does no harm, and so fulfils the law's requirements of justice. In short, no harm, no foul -- but also, love has a positive aspect; it seeks the good of one's neighbour. But notice the context here: relationships among people as neighbours in a community.

--> That leads to the issue of Government, and more broadly of governance, in that community. Again, Jefferson's brief for his client the incipient USA, is telling: "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." That is, we see a function at a different level from simple neighbourliness.

--> Paul's remarks earlier in the same passage are:

RO 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4 For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.

--> In short, the role of securing justice raises the issue that there are evil-doers who seek advantage despite the harm done to the neighbour.

--> So, to protect the community, there must be a swordbearer apportioned the task of upholding justice. [And such justice becomes a primary qualification and task in that role. That such governors should be accountable and may abuse the power leads to the rights of orderly and just reformation and revolution.]

--> Similarly, in a world of natural law in which order and predictability exist -- a criterion of moral action -- we have the possibility of harm through natural events or accidents, so the governance function also has a task in organised helping of those so harmed through no fault of their own.

--> In that context, we see where the force of "turn the other cheek" occurs; which is hinted at by its very words -- how should one respond to insults such as a slap to the face. But, where we cross the threshold from insult to serious harm to the individual, the family or the community, the governance function kicks in, to protect it through justice, whether by deterrence or active restraint or by retribution as appropriate.

3] WRF3

--> I find it a bit hard to figure out just where you are coming from, though it seems you are arguing that on naturalistic premises, the objectivity of morality tends to disappear - like the objectivity of mind in general.

--> You are right to target number as the test case, as the vast success of science hinges critically on the truthfulness of numbers and their properties.

--> But if oneness, twoness etc exist and can be accurately referred to -- Aristotle: truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not -- then, what pray tell do we refer to when we talk of numbers? Similarly, of propositions and associated laws of logic and mathematics? What about INFORMATION, on which more and more of our economies are curently being founded? not to mention, good/evil and morality?

--> In short, we see here mental things that appear to be more than mere epiphenomena of a material world, things we actually use to try to understand and manipulate the world to our advantage. That goes a long way to undercutting physicalism, I would say.

--> The objectivity of 1 + 1 = 2 is of course demonstrable through a concrete case; or the long way around through Peano's axioms and what not. But in either case, we are seeing that fundamentally abstract entities reliably act into our physical world. For, we have to recognise that one-ness, two-ness and the operation of addition as well as the relation of equality refer -- even when Og puts two rocks inside a circle in the cave's sand to teach Zog how to figure out how many deer they just killed.

--> Unless such mental entities are true and powerful, why does that work?

--> In that context, why then do moral abstractions have such power, similarly?

++++++++

Grace

Gordon

46

Gordon asked me:

I find it a bit hard to figure out just where you are coming from, though it seems you are arguing that on naturalistic premises, the objectivity of morality tends to disappear - like the objectivity of mind in general.

I'm arguing that all morality is subjective and that this is worldview invariant. That is, morality is subjective whether one is a theist or an atheist. In a naturalist system this then means that might makes right. In the Christian worldview, since God cannot be coerced or destroyed, His moral system is the ultimate frame of reference. In this case, might enforces right. A polytheistic system would have different properties.

Is mind objective? Well, I'm not a solipsist, but I can't prove that solipsism is true.

You are right to target number as the test case, as the vast success of science hinges critically on the truthfulness of numbers and their properties.

It has nothing to do with "truthfulness". For whatever reason (and the answer depends on one's worldview), mathematical systems can be used to model reality (whatever reality really is).

But if oneness, twoness etc exist and can be accurately referred to -- Aristotle: truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not -- then, what pray tell do we refer to when we talk of numbers? Similarly, of propositions and associated laws of logic and mathematics? What about INFORMATION, on which more and more of our economies are curently being founded? not to mention, good/evil and morality?

Don't make the mistake of putting mathematics and morality in the same category. They aren't. The properties of numbers (such as the fact that there are an infinite number of primes) are independent of the properties of nature.

The objectivity of 1 + 1 = 2 is of course demonstrable through a concrete case; or the long way around through Peano's axioms and what not. But in either case, we are seeing that fundamentally abstract entities reliably act into our physical world. For, we have to recognise that one-ness, two-ness and the operation of addition as well as the relation of equality refer -- even when Og puts two rocks inside a circle in the cave's sand to teach Zog how to figure out how many deer they just killed.

Unless such mental entities are true and powerful, why does that work?

One answer is that they just do. It may be simply that number systems are so flexible that they can model any number of phenomena.

In that context, why then do moral abstractions have such power, similarly?

Depends on one's worldview.

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--> Well, well, a case where B and I are in general agreement! (Of course, we need to dig a little deeper to ask whence cometh the concept of mutual respect in a world where people are just accidents thrown out by the fundamental chaos of the universe; that is, subjective values vs objective VALUE that attaches ot one who is a Creature endowed with a certain dignity and unalienable rights.)

Accidents? There is no such thing. A meteor doesn't fall out of the sky and kill a huge number of species because of an accident but because the rock was obeying the laws of motion about the sun. A species that evolves as a social creature faces a set of unavoidable consequences, the 'Golden Rule' therefore makes perfect sense in evolutionary terms. That's not the same thing as saying it is an evolutionary trait. I suspect it is more a consequence of intelligence since one of the first uses of intelligence is seeking out the most sensible way to provide for survival.

As I pointed out, the most selfish materialist would have very good reasons for being inclined to favor a society that follows the GR rather than its opposite.

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All:

Interesting points. I think I should respond to B first as that will be briefer:

1] B: Accidents? There is no such thing. A meteor doesn't fall out of the sky and kill a huge number of species because of an accident but because the rock was obeying the laws of motion about the sun.

--> This is an idiosyncratic usage of "accidents." That a meteor may be following the physical dynamics has nothing to do with whether or not its path is purposive or simply set at random based on whatever boundary conditions and forces acted across its lifetime since its origin. The material issue is not that say newtonian dynamics explains the trajectory across time -- at least in principle -- but that those dynamics are largely based on random conditions as opposed to purposive ones. [And BTW, that is very consistent with the concept that the cosmos as a whole is designed; cf. the state uf molecules in a gas as a case in point where random forces and behaviour are consistent with an overall order.]

--> this is as good a time as any to engage B briefly on a major problem he has, the concepts linked to chance as opposed to agency. Here, Wiki is helpful, through defining randomness:

The word random is used to express apparent lack of purpose, cause, or order. The term randomness is often used synonymously with a number of measurable statistical properties, such as lack of bias or correlation.

Randomness has an important place in science and philosophy . . . .

small-scale randomness is found in almost all real-world systems. Ohm's law and the kinetic theory of gases are statistically reliable descriptions of the 'sum' (ie, the net result or integration) of vast numbers of individual micro events, each of which are random, and none of which are individually predictable. (Theoretically the micro events of gases, for example, could be predicted if the exact position, velocity, atomic composition, angular momentum etc. were known.) All we directly perceive is circuit noise and some bulk gas behaviors . . . .

In his book A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram describes three mechanisms responsible of (apparently) random behaviour in systems :

1. Randomness coming from the environment (for example, brownian motion, but also hardware random number generators)

2. Randomness coming from the initial conditions. This aspect is studied by chaos theory, and is observed in systems whose behaviour is very sensitive to small variations in initial conditions (such as pachinko machines, dice ...).

3. Randomness intrinsically generated by the system. This is also called pseudorandomness, and is the kind used in pseudo-random number generators. There are many algorithms (based on arithmetics or cellular automaton) to generate pseudorandom numbers. The behaviour of the system can be determined by knowing the seed state and the algorithm used. This method is quicker than getting "true" randomness from the environment.

In practice, these sources of randomness often act together.

--> The context for my reference to accident of course is the evolutionary materialist worldview, which typically sees the cosmogenetic parameters of our observed universe as set at random in a vastly wider cosmos as a whole, and then argues [IMCO unsuccessfully] to formation of life through spontnaeous chemical reactions in equally spointnaneously formed prebiotic environments, thence onwards to biodiversity at macro level through random alterations to the DNA code that then lead to new forms of life that happen by such accident to better fit their environment.

--> My basic point is that on such premises, the product of such a blind chance process is properly to beviewed as detritus from the chaos that underlies the apparent order ofd the reality we perceive. Thus, such an accidental product has no dignity or value, other than those assigned by subjective and social forces.

--> Consequently, while we may observe - and the issue of getting to a mind that makes reliable analytical inferences on such a worldview is a major and indeed arguably self-defeating problem -- that it is advantageous to live in a community that by and large lives by GR/CI, the individual who is sufficiently powerful has no restrainst other than prudence, on living by very different values that exploit the trust that such a community builds up.

--> Indeed, that is a core component of Kant's thought: selfish "exceptions" to principles are destructive. Then, the bad examples propagate across the community to wreak havoc.

--> And, BTW, this shows one level of objectivity in morality -- sound morality leads to a coherent and sustainable community, and this is subject to reasoned analysis.

2] WRF3: all morality is subjective and that this is worldview invariant. That is, morality is subjective whether one is a theist or an atheist. In a naturalist system this then means that might makes right. In the Christian worldview, since God cannot be coerced or destroyed, His moral system is the ultimate frame of reference. In this case, might enforces right. A polytheistic system would have different properties.

--> All human experience and knowing has a subjective component, and that is worldview-invariant, indeed, it is antecedent to having a distinct worldview. But I am noit convinced thatt his makes objective knowledge impossible, and in particular I think it is possible to have warranted, credibly true moral beliefs. For instance, the recent horror in Jamaica where gunmen burned a family alive in a house, shooting to prevent neighbours from rescuing the victims has triggered a wave of revulsion across that society precisely because we know intuitively -- directly and non-inferentially -- that such is wrong. Notice similarly, that no-one argues that Hitler was right to slaughter 13 millions or more in concentration camps -- the objection is [in the teeth of massive evidence] that such did not happen not that it was justifiable.

--> A basic level of it is to observe the force of the above chain of reasoning: the Ci is based on the observation that certain behaviours are plainly inconsistent and if theyt propagate across a society they tend to itrs destruction. For instance, if promise-breaking and lying generally become the habitual praxis of a society, communication and trust will break down.

--> At first, the pioneers in this new "pyramid scheme will obviously benefit att he expense of those who make the mistake of trusting them; but soon as the pyramid propagates, more and more will be vicitms and more and more will become suspicious, thus the society as a whole tends to break down. That tells us that promise breaking and habitual lying are objectively destructive adn parasitical on a society where tha tis not the norm.

--> now of course the nihilist can object: so what, I do not care. But then, such a society will disintegrate into Hobbes' war of all vs all, leading to a situation where existential threats will emerge leading as a rule to tyranny to restore order. So, the objection self-destructs: societies where there is a war of all vs all are plainly and objectively objectionable.

--> In the theistic frame of reference, of course, God is the ultimate reality and so his view is in fact objectively the basis of the order of moral as well as material nature. For, he made that nature.

--> the problem of materialist views is a problem, not of recognising that some things are plainly wrong, but of failing to have an adequate ground for that inference. To respond to this major difficulty, convoluted arguments are then made, which simply further expose the underlying absurdity.

3] It has nothing to do with "truthfulness". For whatever reason (and the answer depends on one's worldview), mathematical systems can be used to model reality (whatever reality really is).

--> As Aristotle said: truth says of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not - as was previously linked.

--> All you have done here is to highlight the fact that mathematics refers, i.e. it corresponds well with reality insofar as we are able to tell. in short, what you have said neatly dovetails with the claim that mathematics expresses powerful truths about the world, raising in thurn the implication that here we have immaterial, mental entities that not only express realities but also allow us to act into that reality powerfully.

4] Don't make the mistake of putting mathematics and morality in the same category. They aren't. The properties of numbers (such as the fact that there are an infinite number of primes) are independent of the properties of nature.

--> But, they are: mental constructs that refer to the objective world in powerful ways that shape or should shape our behaviour.

--> Further to this, that there is an infinite number of primes is a fact of nature, just as the point that an even number of white guavas, say six, can be shared without an odd one left over between you and I: both of us will get three. [Yum!]

--> More generally, i was pointing out thatt here is a wide class of such mental constructs that refer and give us considerable power: numbers, propositions, moral propositions, information generally.

5] It may be simply that number systems are so flexible that they can model any number of phenomena.

--> Yup, they refer so powerfully that we can routinely tie them to observed and experienced reality by constructing and using mathematical models: e.g. accounting and inventory control systems, MIS's, models of economies, circuit models, quantum theory, boolean algebra, register transfer algebra [the basic math of complex digital systems], set theory, probability theory, coding theory [which in practise uses the power of primes] and more.

--> in short, mathematics quite often and quite powerfully refers. That leads tot he poit that in the softer sense, it is capable of being objectively true. That is, we see credible evidence of truth in the correspondence sense; even though that claim is inherently provisional given that we humans are fallible.

--> BTW, that leads me to the last point: "error exists" is undeniably true, and entails that truth exists as that which correctly refers to the acutal state of affairs in the world. That is, we can at least partly access a correspondence between our claims and reality: truth is at least partly knowable.

--> Let us serve Him who is truth himself, then!

++++++++

Grace

Gordon

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"Let us serve Him who is truth himself, then!"

Given the content of this thread, by this I think you mean lead a morally good life, but how can you serve him when you do not know how to? The only moral code that we have is given to us by the society in which we live. Though a large amount of this is taken from religious text, (though you could easily argue that the reverse is true) how can you know how to serve God without feedback on your actions, when the only sources you have for God's morals are taken from an environment where errors exist.

The only basis for leading a moral life is by your own judgement. It is perfectly acceptable and probable that from a naturalist view humans have become cooperational and we therefore treat each other as ends in themselves rather than means to ends and so the vast majority of decisions both morally and otherwise are based on our own judgements and therefore follow a similar pattern across the world. A pattern which has come with us through our evolution.

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The material issue is not that say newtonian dynamics explains the trajectory across time -- at least in principle -- but that those dynamics are largely based on random conditions as opposed to purposive ones.

Purposive conditions? A purpose implies intent. For example, if you forgetfully got out of a manual car without putting it in gear or setting the parking break and it rolls down a hill the initial conditions were 'set without purpose'. If you did it because you were sick of the payments and were hoping your insurance company would pay off the balance then the 'initial conditions' of the car would have been set purposefully. Ironically the examples given of 'pseudo-randomness' are all generated purposefully...such as tossing a coin or dice in a gambling game!

Anyway, evolution does not generate 'random' species with 'random' traits in the sense that throwing down a bag of scrabble letter tiles will generate a random series of letters. Evolution generates species that are suited to survivial. What is suited is influenced by random events if you will. For example the fact that NASA has built 'super clean rooms' to work on space probes has opened up the ground for species of bacteria adapted to live in the harsh conditions of those rooms. This environment was created 'by accident' in the sense that politics could have just as easily axed those rooms before they were ever built. So accidents do happen but the bacteria didn't evolve by accident. Evolution isn't a crap shoot that could have just as easily tossed bacteria into that room that is best suited for environments full of sugar (like the garabage can outside a candy factory).

Limiting myself to just the Golden Rule there is nothing amazing about it from an evolutionary perspective. In fact it is quite logical as well as humanities half-hearted adherence to it!

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All:

A few remarks. I will comment:

1] Norman: The only moral code that we have is given to us by the society in which we live. Though a large amount of this is taken from religious text, (though you could easily argue that the reverse is true) how can you know how to serve God without feedback on your actions, when the only sources you have for God's morals are taken from an environment where errors exist.

--> We have far more resources for moral behaviour than culturally relative information. For instance, we can start with conscience.

--> Second, as Kant's CI indicates, the evident equality of men -- of course this can be denied but on pain of absurdities as suggested and linked above -- and our intuitive sense of worth/dignity/value leads to the reasoning that makes the GR-type principle of fairness and benevolence credible to reason. So, we can thingk objectively about morality and critique our individual and collective behaviour.

--> To illustrate the challenge of cultural relativism, note the Nazi defense at Nuremberg: they were following the duly authorised laws of their country when they carried out the holocaust so who are you to come in from outside and object? Similarly, what do you do if the society in qn is pre MLK Southern USA or pre 1994 South Africa? Or, pre 1833-4 Jamaica, with slavery as the law of the land?

--> Moreover, whilr the possibility of error is always there, the substantial fact is that we can also recognise and correct errors. The cases just cited are illustrative in point.

2] The only basis for leading a moral life is by your own judgement. It is perfectly acceptable and probable that from a naturalist view humans have become cooperational and we therefore treat each other as ends in themselves rather than means to ends and so the vast majority of decisions both morally and otherwise are based on our own judgements and therefore follow a similar pattern across the world. A pattern which has come with us through our evolution.

--> Your usage suggests that you focus on the individual's perceptions in the context of the culture. Both are subject to correction through right reason about morality as the cases just given aptly illustrate. That is the account you gave is, sadly, factually inadequate.

--> Second, a just-so story is not at all enough to account for morality and its credibility on naturalistic premises. You have to deal with the sort of challenge here, which raises a general question about the reliability of mind on such premises.

3] Boonton: Purposive conditions? A purpose implies intent. For example, if you forgetfully got out of a manual car without putting it in gear or setting the parking break and it rolls down a hill the initial conditions were 'set without purpose'. . . Ironically the examples given of 'pseudo-randomness' are all generated purposefully...such as tossing a coin or dice in a gambling game!

--> Obviously, in the case of tossing a die or coin, the purpose is: to generate a random result. This is materially not different from a die or coing toss triggered by say an earthquake. the same odds of 1/6 or 1/2 would hold for any given face.

--> I have already long since addressed the implications of the eight corners and twelve edges of a die. The two edges of a coin are similar: once sufficient kinetic energy is imparted to such a device, the outcome is indeterminate once we reckon with the fact that all mechanical measurements have in them a certain degree of uncertainty; indeed, the Gaussian error curve was developed in light of having to deal with such errors in astronomical measurement contexts in C19 -- an issue that was highly material to the mapping of the world and to navigation. So, the cited systems become random enough to illustrate the points being made.

--> This sub-point is in fact a distracting irrelevancy, given the material point that the behaviour of molecules in a world where temperature is a measure of average random kinetic and potential energy per degree of freedom per molecule.

--> In that world, we see Brownian motion as a major clue to how molecules interact [a major contribution by Einstein was to use this to justify atomic theory empirically], and we see that spontaneous reactions are therefore constrained by random conditions and random thermal motion. That speaks straight to abiogenesis scenarios, and to genetic mutation scenarios: the randomness generates the variation, the selection part is a filter not a generator.

--> The basic point of randomness, then, is precisely lack of intent/ability ahead of time to get to a specific outcome, often coupled to processes that are so sensitively dependent on initial and interveneing conditions and forces that the outcome is essentially unpredictable in the specific, though a distribution of possibilities is typical. Thus, any one outcome is as good as any other, the question being whether the distribution is flat, peaked/ bell, J, reverse-J, U or whatever.

--> So, randomness -- thus chance, is a key issue in causation questions; indeed in inferential statistics, the null hyp we often seek to eliminate is that the observed outcome is by chance not intent. That is, we look at chance, blind natural forces and agency as typical roots of cause in a given situation.

in that context, the characteristic signature of agency is that it generates otherwise highly improbable, complex and functionally specified outcomes. For instance, the letter string in this bullet-point is long, functions as a communication in english, and is of sufficient size that its generation by a random string is maximally improbable relative to the likelihood of getting a non-functional outcome like nsgsiyifawhfhf. (Noticew how by purpose I have embedded a random string as a subset ogf an intentional, complex one! Also, Norm should note how the errors w at the end of notice and g in of -- I decided to use it rather than correct it -- are correctable; because there is enough redundancy in the system.)

4] evolution does not generate 'random' species with 'random' traits in the sense that throwing down a bag of scrabble letter tiles will generate a random series of letters. Evolution generates species that are suited to survivial. What is suited is influenced by random events if you will.

--> Of course, you are begging the question and clouding the issue: the material issue being dodged here is the usual one: the random forces are what NDT and chem evo advocates look to to create the complex and functional information that can then be filterd ans selected for; but that sort of outcome is maximally sparse in the space of random possible outcomes. So, when we see complexity that is functional, the natural inference and best explanation barring absolutely compelling evicdence otherwise, is to agency at work.

--> in particular, at the point of chem evo, the alleged prebiotic soup is set by random forces and the reaction sin it are likewise random and spontaneous; the likelihood of getting even ONE 200-element protein by such chance is ~ 1 in 10^260 [by my calc and Dawkins' calc], even leaving off the problem that life is observed to be chiral not racemic. Such an outcome is so unlikeluy that it falls below the reasonable bound for getting to a functionally specified complex informational outcome by chance just once in the known universe [as opposed to speculative quasi-infinite universes postulated to overwhelm this statistic], ~ 1 in 10^110 or 120 to 150. This has now been thoroughly discussed in the Dawkins Miracle thread.

--> In short, the comparison of Dembski and Dawkins on life forms is telling:

Dembski: intelligent design is not a religious doctrine about where everything came from but rather a scientific investigation into how patterns exhibited by finite arrangements of matter can signify intelligence.

Dawkins: “biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose” [http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.04.Backlash.htm ]

--> If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like one and so on, absent compelling evidence that it is not a duck, I am well-warranted to conclude that it is a duck. So, if it looks designed and acts designed, and there is a clear pattern that apart from jst-so stories, there is no compelig reason to infer otherwise, I am entitled to infer that life forms exhibit design as empirically detected through probability filtering of the observed functionally specified complex information.

--> On the further point of clean rooms and bacteria that have adapted, notice that this is of course micro- not macro-evolution. For, the functional systems of life were there all along, requiring at minimum 500,000 base pairs in the DNA. What is happening is that strains are being selected that are adaptable to clean rooms.

--> Further to this, agency as I have highlighted since April, has both intended and unintended consequences. It is the former that is design. Another example -- of course debated -- of the latter is anthropogenic climate change, the example I have used consistently since April.

--> But, this is not a thread on Design theory vs NDT, at least not in the main. So, having addressed the side-issue that randomness/chance is a real phenomenon, let us turn back to the core points:

5] Limiting myself to just the Golden Rule there is nothing amazing about it from an evolutionary perspective. In fact it is quite logical as well as humanities half-hearted adherence to it!

--> Sure, let's just make up a just-so story. In short, the problem is to generate a detailed account that addresses the difficulties entailed; especially the issue that the product of a randomness-dominated process in a chaos that s/he imagines to be a cosmos, has no intrinsic value.

--> For instance, Darwin;s Origin has an interesting sub-title: more or less, Or, the preservation of favoured races in the struggle to survive.

--> In short, the characteristic Darwinian appeal is to survival in a process of struggle and even violence that eliminates the weak -- not a GR ethic that cherishes and protects those vulnerable on the principle that they have such an inherent value that one should imagine oneself in their shoes before acting in ways that might harm them.

--> Nor is this an aberration: Haeckel, Spencer and other leading Darwinists led in the creation of Social Darwinism, which then inthe hands of a great many ruthless men "justified" capitalist exploitation through robber baron tactics, racism, eugenics and frankly genocide once it got into the hands of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. [The latter modelled some of his worst laws on eugenics laws then extant in the USA.]

--> Indeed, as I have previously observed, it is in the shocking aftermath of WWII that there has been a general backing away from that aspect of the Darwinian worldview and a seeking for a better evolutionary ethics.

--> But, the underlying issue is that on evolutionary materialist grounds, there is no inherent value tothe individual, so a morality of protection is undermined; most notably currently in the USA through mass abortion [which disproportionately targets blacks; surprise!] and the sort of horror expressed in the recent killing of a woman in Florida by removing her feeding tube and refusing her water and food whilest dressing her in hot clothes so that she would sweat out and die. Never mind her anguished plea, "I waa . . ." on being told of her fate. [Of course, the pretence is being made that the autopsy can counter the clinical diagnosis issue of minimal conscious ness vs PVS. The issue being ducked, again, is that the benefit of the doubt should belong to the woman! Wcen criminals on a murder charge are supposed to get that much.]

--> In short, the Darwinist quality of life/ struggle to survive in a contest ethic is inherently at odds with the GR. But, since the collective survival of the species is now evidently linked to sustainability issues -- rooted in GR/CI -- that gives rise to most interesting challenges.

--> let us now look at these, in light of the ethics of liberty and justice as are aptly summed up by Jefferson in a document he penned for his client, the emerging United States:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

--> In short, a Judaeo-Christian anchored Creation ethic has ample resources in it to ground rights and the principle of equity and benevolence. [And the Dutch DOI of 1581's parallels to the US DOI should suffice to show that indeed, these concepts are Judaeo Christian, not strictly Deist -- even the term law of nature. NB to lurkers: this was recently discussed at length in the Devil's Allies thread, if details are desired to show that this is indeed so.]

--> The REAL question, then, is: on what basis can an evolutionary materialist worldview ground the sort of ethics that are now evidently increasingly vital to our survival?

++++++++

Grace

Gordon

52

--> I have already long since addressed the implications of the eight corners and twelve edges of a die. The two edges of a coin are similar: once sufficient kinetic energy is imparted to such a device, the outcome is indeterminate once we reckon with the fact that all mechanical measurements have in them a certain degree of uncertainty;

Indeterminate simply means here that we do not have the equipment to measure initial conditions with sufficient accuracy to generate the end result in less time than it would take for the die or coin to hit the ground. The outcome, though, is not random in the fundamental sense. The randomness we use is an estimation tool. It is very much similar to a multiple choice test that we haven't studied for but we can eliminate some of the choices. The remaining choices mean that we must guess with a certain probability of getting the answer correct. It doesn't mean the correct answer is random, it simply means at best our ability to get the correct answer is random.

--> Of course, you are begging the question and clouding the issue: the material issue being dodged here is the usual one: the random forces are what NDT and chem evo advocates look to to create the complex and functional information that can then be filterd ans selected for; but that sort of outcome is maximally sparse in the space of random possible outcomes. So

Indeed the environment is treated as a 'random force' by evolutionary theory simply for the ease of calculation. Certainly no one really believes there's a big wheel of fortune that spins in the center of the earth that determines whether the next 10,000 years will have an ice age or not.

There are many path