Help me make sence of William Lane Craigs nonsense

by bohm 104 Replies latest jw friends

  • Ding
    Ding

    Bohm said:

    I think its immoral to kill another people because 1) im ending his life and human life has value and 2) i would not like him to do that to me.

    I think lambs have value and I don't like the idea of lions eating them, but I don't think there's anything immoral about lions eating lambs; it's just a part of nature.

    Some cannibalistic human beings kill and eat other human beings. I don't like that and I wouldn't want it done to me, but why do you think there's anything objectively immoral about it; it's just a part of nature, isn't it?

    Your ethical code may be the Golden Rule.

    Hitler's was "Deutschland uber alles."

    Charles Manson's is "Helter Skelter."

    You may think your moral code is superior to theirs.

    They think theirs is superior to yours.

    Why should you be able to force your morality on them or claim it's objectively better than theirs?

    You're entitled to your opinion; they are entitled to theirs, right?

    Who is the ultimate judge of what is moral and immoral -- you? Hitler? Manson? The results of a Gallup poll? God?

  • bohm
    bohm

    Ding -- i wont ask the same question a 4th time but rather engage a different path:

    Some cannibalistic human beings kill and eat other human beings. I don't like that and I wouldn't want it done to me, but why do you think there's anything objectively immoral about it; it's just a part of nature, isn't it?

    But obviously this is not what i think. i think human life have value, and cannibalism destroy that value -- hence canibalism is wrong. I think its a logically sound position and one i will defend any day. I dont claim i have a full system of morals, or an ideal one, or one completely free of contradictions -- i dont think such one exist and will note you have provided no evidence that it is so! -- but i do think i have one which is logically sound, and which make a hell of a lot of more sence than a theistically based one, which i find devoid of value.

    So why do you think its wrong to eat another human being? Hopefully your answer is not: "It goes against the wishes of a greater being (God)"!

  • Ding
    Ding

    I would probably give the same answers as you as to why I think cannibalism is wrong, but if someone pressed me to prove that my moral code in this regard was objectively correct and that the cannibal's was wrong, I don't think I could do it by appealing to evolution or nature.

    Some creatures eat other creatures of the same species and there's no moral implication at all.

    Can a lion / tiger / spider / dog commit an immoral act?

    Why then do we insist that some human actions are immoral as opposed to simply saying that we personally find them abhorrent because they offend us or violate some principle (such as the Golden Rule) that we personally hold dear?

    Isn't it because we believe that where human beings are concerned a different standard applies than applies to other creatures?

    Isn't it because we believe there are moral principles that transcend our personal feelings or approval?

    Even if everyone else in the world found cannibalism acceptable, you wouldn't, and you would believe that your view was superior to theirs, not just different.

  • bohm
    bohm

    Ding -- But you would not have to appeal to evolution, i would always appeal to the value of human life which i find higher than that of Dogs. I believe i can argue that case very easily to any human being!

    Can a lion / tiger / spider / dog commit an immoral act?

    no ofcourse not.

    Why then do we insist that some human actions are immoral as opposed to simply saying that we personally find them abhorrent because they offend us or violate some principle (such as the Golden Rule) that we personally hold dear?

    because we would ultimately have to argue human life have no value -- and i say it have, i find that self-evident. i have absolutely no problem with making that claim, and i would find the contrary option entirely devoid of value and intelligence (and so would you).

    Even if everyone else in the world found cannibalism acceptable, you wouldn't, and you would believe that your view was superior to theirs, not just different.

    But so? If everyone believed 2+2 = 3, i would still believe my view was superior! what does that proove? That God desided 2+2 = 4 at some point? What does that add?

  • Ding
    Ding

    Don't animals have value as well? If we are all just creatures who evolved completely accidentally from cosmic goo, what is so special about human beings -- other than that that's what you and I happen to be?

    You have appealed to what you consider to be the self-evident value of human life. This may seem self-evident to you and me but it wasn't to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Capone, Dillinger, Manson, and the like.

    I think there's a big difference between proving something with mathematical certainty (2 + 2 = 4) and proving that our moral judgments are right.

    When I was young, the prevailing moral view in American society was that sex outside of marriage is immoral. (Granted, a lot of people who professed to believe that didn't live by it, but that was their stated moral standard.) Today that view seems quaint. Many young people aren't even aware that this was the prevailing view and wouldn't believe it if we told them.

    My point is that -- unlike mathematical truths -- what appears self-evident morally to the vast majority of people in a society can change radically in a short time.

    We can consider our moral standards superior to other people's moral standards and courageously (stubbornly?) hold to our opinion even if everyone else in the world disagrees with us, but I maintain that without God as the foundation of morality, moral values are more like matters of personal opinion and taste than like objective, fixed mathematical truths.

  • bohm
    bohm

    If we are all just creatures who evolved completely accidentally from cosmic goo, what is so special about human beings -- other than that that's what you and I happen to be?

    we can experience love, we can think, we can enjoy music; these are the things that i believe give a human life more value than an animal.

    but I maintain that without God as the foundation of morality, moral values are more like matters of personal opinion and taste than like objective, fixed mathematical truths.

    We must get some basics clear: I dont claim my viewpoint is entirely coherent; for example i strongly suspect it is not moral of me to eat meat, i also strongly suspect that i would make invalid moral judgement if I eg. heard Joseph Fritzel was raped in prison. Secondly, you can ask me: "Why" and i will eventually resort to: "It is so. It is how i assume it to be", but you can do that on any subject and it does not invalidate my position in itself.

    We must examine if God is a better explanation for morals than "no-god". So is he? How does God give eg. human life moral value? Is it because he simply wish it to be so (in which case, could he then wish anything to be moral?), or is it because he recognize we have some properties that give us moral value?

  • Ding
    Ding

    Interesting discussion.

    Too bad more people didn't join in.

  • bohm
    bohm

    The title was perhaps a tad to aggressive (also the more interesting part of the topic was the off-topic part).

  • eric356
    eric356

    I think I can clarify some of the misconceptions here.

    Premise 1 of the argument is deeply flawed. The main issue is the definition of 'objective'. Usually, objective means that something is independent of a mind. Things that are dependent on a mind (preferences, beliefs, etc) are subjective. So, if Craig is claiming that morality is objective, then he's saying that it isn't dependent on any minds. However, he establishes God (who is supposed to be a disembodied mind) as the necessary foundation for morality. (Divine command ethics) If God's mind is what anchors morality, then morality is subjective.

    However, we can redefine objective to be more useful. Objective could mean verifiable by all people, a fact about the world, and not dependent on a particular mind. So, it is objectively true that a chunk of rock is denser than a chunk of cotton candy. Now, only in a world with at least one mind do any of these words have any meaning, but given some minds, all will agree with the conclusion. This makes the conclusion objective. A mind could not rationally disagree that the rock is less dense than the cotton candy.

    With this definition in hand, it may be quite plausible that an objective morality exists apart from a god. It could also be possible that this morality exists, and a god exists. In that case, god is just another mind verifying that morality is objective. One could go about thinking of "objective" morality as the most rational actions that a group of agents would take. As an analogy, there may be a "best" way to play chess. If winning is the goal, it is possible (with a huge amount of computing time) to mathematically evaluate the space of all possible moves and determine which is best. The same could be said for objective an morality. We could evaluate all the possible actions that a society of people could take, and figure out the best method. It could be possible that there are multiple, equally effective methods. (This is basically the Sam Harris idea.)

    I also noticed that people were confusing "objective" morality with prudential concerns or motivations for moral actions or duties. Basically, the argument is something like, "If there's no God, why not do anything that you can get away with?" This is a confusion of terms. Morality can be objective, and totally apparent to a person. However, if they disregard the objective moral rule, then they can act immorally. Just because morality doesn't provide some prudential motivation, doesn't mean it's not objective. In fact, I would argue that "moral" systems that are reliant on prudential motivators (carrots and sticks) aren't really moral systems. If someone says "You should help others, or I'll shoot you in the face" and you decide that it makes sense to help others, this wasn't a moral decision. It was a prudent, objective decision, but not a moral one. This is where the Kantian idea that morality has to be self imposed comes from. For this reason, people who are sociopaths, lacking all empathy, can't understand intuitive moral decision-making. They can only understand the prudential facts of a situation.

    Premise 2 is also really bad. It amounts to, "Don't you just really FEEL that morality is objective and true?" This is an appeal to emotion, with no backup argumentation. It is an open question in moral philosophy if morality exists at all (error theory), or if moral feelings can be true or false at all (noncognitivism).

    Finally, when Craig talks about evolution not being an explanation for morality, he's not talking about the actual behavior. He doesn't mean (entirely) that he thinks that altruism couldn't have evolved. He's saying that if it evolved, why is it moral? If humans evolved in a different manner, would different things then be moral? That's his point. Evolution can explain the behavior, but it doesn't provide a proscriptive basis for saying that something is moral. To argue the contrary would be the genetic fallacy.

  • bohm
    bohm

    eric: Thanks for your input. I was avoiding asking a definition for "objective morals" since i have gotten plenty of flack for asking definitions before :-). Nevertheless i cant say im surpriced to discover its yet another buzzword mainly put in there to summon God and confuse the crap out of the sceptic.

    On purely scientific grounds, even given him pretty much every part of the argument, it would seem it could be dismissed entirely by just observing it explain nothing and it add nothing to our description of the world.

    In that sense i think its even worse than the fine-tuning argument, it do at least offer a horribly flawed, non-falsifiable explanation to a problem that might not exist at all, but hey, at least it contain an explanation of a physical observation!

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