?s about atheism but were afraid to ask

03/23/2011 05:53:25 PM · #801

Originally posted by BrennanOB:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Actually, it does, but it requires the acceptance of one assumption: respect for individual autonomy is a moral positive.

Sadly much like the dictum "It is immoral to steal (sometimes)" autonomy as a moral positive is great, until it meets another autonomy. Howard Roark, Ayn Rand's hero from The Fountainhead Fully expresses a certain style of autonomy when he blows up buildings he designed because others had interfered with his design. His autonomy took precedence over that of others, the "second handers" like all the people who actually worked to make the buildings he blew up. If autonomy is the great good, how can we interact when our needs come into conflict?

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

This doesn't undermine the assumption in the least, it simply points out that the "moral" choice will not always be clear when there are competing claims to the base assumption. In the law, decisions of this sort are referred to as a "balancing of interests" - it's messy, inexact and subject to revision upon later consideration. In other words, pretty much like life.

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

03/23/2011 05:54:14 PM · #802

Originally posted by scalvert:

You have to turn to examination of facts/truths/things that actually CAN be correct or incorrect to weigh the validity of the argument.

So apply this to the chess statement. What facts/truths/things do we hold up that CAN be correct to weigh the validity of the argument?

"If you capture your opponent's king, you win in chess" (taking Paul's clarification to heart).

Message edited by author 2011-03-23 17:54:44.

BrennanOB

Canon EOS-1D Mark II

03/23/2011 05:56:43 PM · #803

Originally posted by David Ey:

But, doesn't the opponent have to surrender?...and wouldn't that mean he was captured?

All you have to do is threaten the king, while not allowing any place to escape to. Once the threat is unaviodable, the game is over. The king never loses his head or bows down. It is considered bad form to knock over or touch the opponents king. Royalty has its benfits.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

03/23/2011 06:01:10 PM · #804

Originally posted by BrennanOB:

Originally posted by David Ey:
But, doesn't the opponent have to surrender?...and wouldn't that mean he was captured?

All you have to do is threaten the king, while not allowing any place to escape to. Once the threat is unaviodable, the game is over. The king never loses his head or bows down. It is considered bad form to knock over or touch the opponents king. Royalty has its benfits.

I've seen the losing player knock over their own king when placed in checkmate.

03/23/2011 06:01:11 PM · #805

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

It's amazing that this very same judge wrote the majority opinion upholding forced sterilization in the 1920s. Bizarre.

Message edited by author 2011-03-23 18:01:22.

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

03/23/2011 06:01:33 PM · #806

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Morality can be both subjective and subject to objective analysis. This makes no sense, you say! Actually, it does, but it requires the acceptance of one assumption: respect for individual autonomy is a moral positive. If you want to tell me that I'm wrong, you must first explain to me how any valuation of morality can be had without an acceptance of the base assumption of the value of respect for personal autonomy.

I'll go there. I think you'll find that even this is a fallacy of overwhelming exception. We can generally value personal freedom just as must as we value privacy, freedom from torture or the sanctity of personal property, but then the exceptions creep in and we abandon that position to justify a variety of circumstances. Can we really say that personal autonomy is correct- an objective truth- when we imprison criminals, set legal restrictions on activities, erect fences on property, etc.? No, we come up with other reasons, both objective and subjective to support our decision. Personal autonomy is warranted in this situation because [XYZ], and unwarranted here because [123]. The base assumption itself is not a given as fact. Any moral proposition is thus going to be subject to interpretation rather than serve as an objective truth to start from.

BrennanOB

Canon EOS-1D Mark II

03/23/2011 06:11:14 PM · #807

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

It's amazing that this very same judge wrote the majority opinion upholding forced sterilization in the 1920s. Bizarre.

ya, the underbelly of all those lovely "all men are created equal" is when you find out who is and who isn't counted among the men. "All of us" is very rarely everyone.

03/23/2011 06:14:22 PM · #808

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

So apply this to the chess statement. What facts/truths/things do we hold up that CAN be correct to weigh the validity of the argument?
"If you capture your opponent's king, you win in chess" (taking Paul's clarification to heart).

The rules of the game. Note the absence of "sometimes" here.

03/23/2011 06:27:35 PM · #809

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So apply this to the chess statement. What facts/truths/things do we hold up that CAN be correct to weigh the validity of the argument?
"If you capture your opponent's king, you win in chess" (taking Paul's clarification to heart).

The rules of the game. Note the absence of "sometimes" here.

And that's an epistemologically objective fact? Something someone wrote down at some point that we can refer to? Interesting.

Clearly you have stated before it isn't an objective fact. But is this truth? It seems obvious it is "true", but yet not "objective". Perhaps we do want to use the term "subjective truth" after all, but you had a big problem with that before.

Message edited by author 2011-03-23 18:34:18.

Pentax D-FA* 70-200mm f/2.8 ED DC AW

03/23/2011 06:28:57 PM · #810

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Morality can be both subjective and subject to objective analysis. This makes no sense, you say! Actually, it does, but it requires the acceptance of one assumption: respect for individual autonomy is a moral positive. If you want to tell me that I'm wrong, you must first explain to me how any valuation of morality can be had without an acceptance of the base assumption of the value of respect for personal autonomy.

I'll go there. I think you'll find that even this is a fallacy of overwhelming exception. We can generally value personal freedom just as must as we value privacy, freedom from torture or the sanctity of personal property, but then the exceptions creep in and we abandon that position to justify a variety of circumstances. Can we really say that personal autonomy is correct- an objective truth- when we imprison criminals, set legal restrictions on activities, erect fences on property, etc.? No, we come up with other reasons, both objective and subjective to support our decision. Personal autonomy is warranted in this situation because [XYZ], and unwarranted here because [123]. The base assumption itself is not a given as fact. Any moral proposition is thus going to be subject to interpretation rather than serve as an objective truth to start from.

You actually aren't addressing the validity of the base assumption. If you are going to challenge the assumption you have to do more than show that individuals/societies act in ways that don't honor the assumption for others (after all, what is being posited is a way to objectively critique those actions). To challenge the validity of the assumption you have to find a way to argue that it is logical for an individual to reject the base assumption for themselves.

Further, as already noted above, the existence of competing claims does not invalidate the assumption.

Lastly, I would argue that your examples do not show direct contradiction of the assumption as you appear to think they do. On imprisonment, curtailing one person's individual autonomy in order to prevent/punish that person's violation of another's individual autonomy is not contradictory to be base assumption. To your specific example: we lock up violent criminals, at least in part, specifically to prevent them from acting violently to others. Thus locking up violent criminals is a moral action, even though it curtails the personal autonomy of the criminal because it acts to safeguard the personal autonomy of others. (However, note that under the framework, it may actually be seen as immoral to imprison nonviolent criminals since the balance of interests would seem to weigh in the other direction in such a case.)

Message edited by author 2011-03-23 18:33:24.

K3Master

Pentax K-3

03/23/2011 06:34:34 PM · #811

No wonder we're screwed as a species.

03/23/2011 06:58:41 PM · #812

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So apply this to the chess statement. What facts/truths/things do we hold up that CAN be correct to weigh the validity of the argument?
"If you capture your opponent's king, you win in chess" (taking Paul's clarification to heart).

The rules of the game. Note the absence of "sometimes" here.

And that's an epistemologically objective fact? Something someone wrote down at some point that we can refer to? Interesting.

Shmuck. It's a compound fact derived from the individual objective truths that there is a game called chess, that it's defined by the rules, and that the rules specify the method of winning, each of which may be verified. You disingenuously make a comparison to the Bible where the base claims cannot be verified. "Any non-trivial true statement about reality is necessarily an abstraction composed of a complex of objects and properties or relations. For example, the fact described by the true statement "Paris is the capital city of France" implies that there is such a place as Paris, there is such a place as France, there are such things as capital cities, as well as that France has a government, that the government of France has the power to define its capital city, and that the French government has chosen Paris to be the capital, that there is such a thing as a "place" or a "government", etc.. The verifiable accuracy of all of these assertions, if facts themselves, may coincide to create the fact that Paris is the capital of France. Difficulties arise, however, in attempting to identify the constituent parts of negative, modal, disjunctive, or moral facts.

Moral philosophers since David Hume have debated whether values are objective, and thus factual. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume pointed out there is no obvious way for a series of statements about what ought to be the case to be derived from a series of statements of what is the case. Those who insist there is a logical gulf between facts and values, such that it is fallacious to attempt to derive values from facts, include G. E. Moore, who called attempting to do so the Naturalistic fallacy." You cannot derive a value from facts, thus you can only use facts to justify an opinion of morality (even though it remains an opinion).

03/23/2011 07:14:02 PM · #813

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
If you want to tell me that I'm wrong, you must first explain to me how any valuation of morality can be had without an acceptance of the base assumption of the value of respect for personal autonomy.

You actually aren't addressing the validity of the base assumption.

Look carefully at your base assumption. Are you declaring that personal autonomy is right or only that people value it? They are not equivalent. The second statement may be true- you could do surveys and compare societies to empirically prove that people generally value personal autonomy, but that's not a value judgement. The first statement, however, is not a base assumption, but an opinion derived from the second. In bygone days the same surveys and comparisons might show that people value segregation, honor killings or single faith marriages. None of those truths (at the time) would make it true that segregation is right, honor killings are right or interfaith marriages are wrong.

Message edited by author 2011-03-23 19:14:57.

03/23/2011 07:42:51 PM · #814

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
If you want to tell me that I'm wrong, you must first explain to me how any valuation of morality can be had without an acceptance of the base assumption of the value of respect for personal autonomy.

You actually aren't addressing the validity of the base assumption.

Look carefully at your base assumption. Are you declaring that personal autonomy is right or only that people value it? They are not equivalent. The second statement may be true- you could do surveys and compare societies to empirically prove that people generally value personal autonomy, but that's not a value judgement. The first statement, however, is not a base assumption, but an opinion derived from the second. In bygone days the same surveys and comparisons might show that people value segregation, honor killings or single faith marriages. None of those truths (at the time) would make it true that segregation is right, honor killings are right or interfaith marriages are wrong.

Look carefully at my first post - the base assumption is that respect for personal autonomy is a moral positive. (Very first paragraph, all the rest is expansion on the idea.) I abhor talk of "rights" but you could rephrase the assumption to "people have a 'right' to personal autonomy," although this is a less exact expression of the idea.

My argument is that each individual implicitly accepts this base assumption because each individual wants their own individual autonomy to be respected by others. To say that your individual autonomy should be respected (you value your personal autonomy), but that you should be free to not respect the autonomy of others (you do not value others personal autonomy) may be true in fact, but is not logically consistent. Thus, by valuing your own autonomy, you inherently accept the base assumption that respect for individual autonomy is a moral positive.

As for your "point" that what people empirically value at any particular point in time does not carry any objective weight as to the "truth" of those values - - I entirely agree. I would argue that segregation, honor killings and allowance for only single-faith marriages are objectively immoral acts/policies - objectively immoral because each of those acts objectively act to curtail the autonomy of one group of individuals in a situation where there is no competing interest.

03/23/2011 07:51:54 PM · #815

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So apply this to the chess statement. What facts/truths/things do we hold up that CAN be correct to weigh the validity of the argument?
"If you capture your opponent's king, you win in chess" (taking Paul's clarification to heart).

The rules of the game. Note the absence of "sometimes" here.

And that's an epistemologically objective fact? Something someone wrote down at some point that we can refer to? Interesting.

Shmuck. It's a compound fact derived from the individual objective truths that there is a game called chess, that it's defined by the rules, and that the rules specify the method of winning, each of which may be verified. You disingenuously make a comparison to the Bible where the base claims cannot be verified. "Any non-trivial true statement about reality is necessarily an abstraction composed of a complex of objects and properties or relations. For example, the fact described by the true statement "Paris is the capital city of France" implies that there is such a place as Paris, there is such a place as France, there are such things as capital cities, as well as that France has a government, that the government of France has the power to define its capital city, and that the French government has chosen Paris to be the capital, that there is such a thing as a "place" or a "government", etc.. The verifiable accuracy of all of these assertions, if facts themselves, may coincide to create the fact that Paris is the capital of France. Difficulties arise, however, in attempting to identify the constituent parts of negative, modal, disjunctive, or moral facts.

Moral philosophers since David Hume have debated whether values are objective, and thus factual. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume pointed out there is no obvious way for a series of statements about what ought to be the case to be derived from a series of statements of what is the case. Those who insist there is a logical gulf between facts and values, such that it is fallacious to attempt to derive values from facts, include G. E. Moore, who called attempting to do so the Naturalistic fallacy." You cannot derive a value from facts, thus you can only use facts to justify an opinion of morality (even though it remains an opinion).

Here's where I think your Moral Fictionalism falls awry. To use the chess analogy:

Another argument for ethical cognitivism stands on the close resemblance between ethics and other normative matters, such as games. As much as morality, games consist of norms (or rules), but it would be hard to accept that it be not true that the chessplayer who checkmates the other one wins the game. If statements about game rules can be true or false, why not ethical statements? One answer is that we may want ethical statements to be categorically true, while we only need statements about right action to be contingent on the acceptance of the rules of a particular game - that is, the choice to play the game according to a given set of rules.

So while the analogy does not support my own moral realism, it DOES support the idea of moral subjectivism which is different than moral fictionalism. The Moral Fictionalism equivalent is to say that the statement about the rules is neither true nor false but rather in error. In other words, the person asserting "You win by capturing the king" and points to the rules to defend his position is in error because there is no separate truth defending him other than the rules which are not objective precepts in themselves (they have been created by someone in an arbitrary fashion).

03/23/2011 08:30:52 PM · #816

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Look carefully at my first post - the base assumption is that respect for personal autonomy is a moral positive. I abhor talk of "rights" but you could rephrase the assumption to "people have a 'right' to personal autonomy," although this is a less exact expression of the idea... My argument is that each individual implicitly accepts this base assumption because each individual wants their own individual autonomy to be respected by others.

If something is a moral positive, isn't that the same as saying we value it? To be accurate, the assumption that "people have a right" to something is a value judgement as surely as "slavery is wrong." It's a widely accepted belief. As you say, each individual implicitly accepts this base assumption because each individual wants their own individual autonomy to be respected by others (the reason underlying the opinion), NOT because personal autonomy itself is correct. If a king or slaveowner declares that people don't have a right to personal autonomy, then you're at an impasses of competing personal beliefs. There's nothing persuasive about simply declaring freedom right or correct, you have to turn to the reasons you hold that opinion.

Peleng 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye MC In M42 Mount

03/23/2011 08:45:32 PM · #817

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

So while the analogy does not support my own moral realism, it DOES support the idea of moral subjectivism which is different than moral fictionalism. The Moral Fictionalism equivalent is to say that the statement about the rules is neither true nor false but rather in error. In other words, the person asserting "You win by capturing the king" and points to the rules to defend his position is in error because there is no separate truth defending him other than the rules which are not objective precepts in themselves (they have been created by someone in an arbitrary fashion).

"Moral subjectivism is the theory that proper human conduct is to be determined by each person individually. The foundation for this philosophy includes the view that there is no absolute truth, and that truth is merely in the eyes of the beholder." "Fictionalism is a non-realist theory of ethics, as it claims ethical statements are not absolutely true or false but gain their 'truth' status relative to the society in which they were constructed as a fiction".... like the rules of a game. You're not helping your case.

Matthew

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

03/23/2011 09:22:58 PM · #818

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The challenge began with Shannon asking for an objective moral truth. Originally this was understood by the audience to mean "objectively unbiased" or not dependent on the culture at hand. I offered the statement "Sometimes stealing is wrong." as being universally agreed upon by all cultures in history. A few refutations were brought up (like pirates) but none of them stuck (pirates don't steal from other pirates).

Yes - this was a huge red herring. Theft is an advanced social concept. In order to have theft, one must also have the concepts of property and ownership among other things. Lower order animals are probably ambiguous to the concept of property and thus theft, but not so for any animal sophisticated enough to understand ownership. It is unlikely that any civilisation would embrace those sophisticated, complex and valuable concepts and then undermine them by embracing theft as being morally ambiguous.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

So it's important to discern between your possible position (subjectivism) and Shannon's (Moral Fictionalism). They sound the same when we talk to both of you, but Shannon, when pressed, is required to say it's all a nonsensical fiction.

I don't see what is so complicated. There is nothing inconsistent with me making all of the following statements:

1. Morality has no objective value: it is a fiction.

2. I am morally outraged by [insert moral outrage].

3. My morality is derived from rational thought.

Intelligent people should be able to stand outside of themselves and recognise that they are part of a system, and that their morality may be a rational (and perhaps compelling) response to stimuli, but that the morality results from the stimuli which will not be the same for all people or all time.

03/23/2011 09:51:07 PM · #819

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Look carefully at my first post - the base assumption is that respect for personal autonomy is a moral positive. I abhor talk of "rights" but you could rephrase the assumption to "people have a 'right' to personal autonomy," although this is a less exact expression of the idea... My argument is that each individual implicitly accepts this base assumption because each individual wants their own individual autonomy to be respected by others.

If something is a moral positive, isn't that the same as saying we value it? To be accurate, the assumption that "people have a right" to something is a value judgement as surely as "slavery is wrong." It's a widely accepted belief. As you say, each individual implicitly accepts this base assumption because each individual wants their own individual autonomy to be respected by others (the reason underlying the opinion), NOT because personal autonomy itself is correct. If a king or slaveowner declares that people don't have a right to personal autonomy, then you're at an impasses of competing personal beliefs. There's nothing persuasive about simply declaring freedom right or correct, you have to turn to the reasons you hold that opinion.

The fact that all individuals wish for their personal autonomy to be respected allows for the adoption of a universalized assumption that personal autonomy is a moral positive. The only thing that would invalidate the universalization of the assumption is if it can be logically consistent for an individual to argue that their own personal autonomy should be respected, but the personal autonomy of others should not. (Again, the fact that people will argue this very thing, does not mean that it is logically consistent for them to do so and this logical inconsistency is what allows for the objective critique.)

You are arguing, but not actually arguing against the position I'm taking. If you want to argue that this is not a valid moral assumption, then you have either got to make an argument that people don't actually value their own personal autonomy, or make an argument that it is somehow logically consistent to want others to respect your own personal autonomy, but that you should be free to not respect the personal autonomy of others.

03/23/2011 11:20:41 PM · #820

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

The fact that all individuals wish for their personal autonomy to be respected allows for the adoption of a universalized assumption that personal autonomy is a moral positive. If you want to argue that this is not a valid moral assumption, then you have either got to make an argument that people don't actually value their own personal autonomy, or make an argument that it is somehow logically consistent to want others to respect your own personal autonomy, but that you should be free to not respect the personal autonomy of others.

The answer can been seen in your own statements. Note that the highlighted proposition is a fictional construct of man (like the rules of a game) that only derives its veracity from the society that created it rather than being an objective fact of its own. The moral claim is a belief that follows from the non-moral truth that individuals wish for their personal autonomy to be respected. If I'm hurt I feel pain (objective truth), therefore I can reason that it's morally wrong to hurt people (subjective belief).

As to your logical requirement, some people born into slavery or lower castes accepted their highly restricted status was "right" when those systems were widely adopted, so they didn't actually value their own personal autonomy and expected others in the same class to waive theirs as well. Some prisoners actually value the structured restrictions of jail over personal freedom. Kings and slaveowners expected to enjoy personal or even privileged autonomy while considering it logically consistent as a divine right to ignore the autonomy of others.

Message edited by author 2011-03-23 23:27:58.

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D

03/24/2011 02:56:32 AM · #821

Originally posted by Matthew:

1. Morality has no objective value: it is a fiction.

2. I am morally outraged by [insert moral outrage].

3. My morality is derived from rational thought.

Do your three statements look different when you replace value with truth in the first line? Either way, I do see a problem with 1 and 2. I take away from 1 that the system is amoral; morality is fictional. I find it difficult then for statement 2 to have any teeth or even any meaning. I am fictionally outraged. *shrug* Also, how can something without existence operate upon you to make you outraged?

1. God is not real; he is fictional.
2. God caused me to be outraged at (insert outrage)

Don't you think statement 2 would be silly coming from an atheist? And if statement 1 is a definition of an atheist, wouldn't your statement 1 be a good definition of amorality?

raish

Olympus C-2500L

03/24/2011 06:16:07 AM · #822

Something whose existence is purely subjective works on you like Billy-O

03/24/2011 10:26:56 AM · #823

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
The fact that all individuals wish for their personal autonomy to be respected allows for the adoption of a universalized assumption that personal autonomy is a moral positive. If you want to argue that this is not a valid moral assumption, then you have either got to make an argument that people don't actually value their own personal autonomy, or make an argument that it is somehow logically consistent to want others to respect your own personal autonomy, but that you should be free to not respect the personal autonomy of others.

The answer can been seen in your own statements. Note that the highlighted proposition is a fictional construct of man (like the rules of a game) that only derives its veracity from the society that created it rather than being an objective fact of its own. The moral claim is a belief that follows from the non-moral truth that individuals wish for their personal autonomy to be respected. If I'm hurt I feel pain (objective truth), therefore I can reason that it's morally wrong to hurt people (subjective belief).

It's not fictional, it is a description of a moral assumption that can be derived logically from a universal characteristic of humanity. You seem to think that I am arguing for an external basis for morality, I'm not. The base assumption that I identify depends on nothing more than the human desire for others to respect our personal autonomy. This is purely secular, derived at by reason, and does not depend on any external source of moral value.

Originally posted by scalvert:

As to your logical requirement, some people born into slavery or lower castes accepted their highly restricted status was "right" when those systems were widely adopted, so they didn't actually value their own personal autonomy and expected others in the same class to waive theirs as well. Some prisoners actually value the structured restrictions of jail over personal freedom. Kings and slaveowners expected to enjoy personal or even privileged autonomy while considering it logically consistent as a divine right to ignore the autonomy of others.

Go back and look at my original post and the follow-up expanding on the hypothetical 10-person society. If you really read it, instead of just pedantically digging in your heals you will see that nothing you say above invalidates the assumption or sets those examples outside of the framework for moral critique that I am putting forward.

Do you think that because a person accepts some limits on their personal autonomy that means that they don't value it at all? Does the fact that the prisoner decides he wants to stay in prison mean that he doesn't have any opinion about or get to object to being mistreated by the guards or killed by another prisoner? Of course not. Under your "logic" it seems that anyone who accepts any restraint on their personal autonomy is rejecting that their personal autonomy has any value at all, e.g., anyone who accepts that taxes are a necessary doesn't value their personal autonomy, since the taking of taxes is a restraint on that individual's personal autonomy to earn money. Therefore, they can't complain if someone wants to sell them into slavery? Really, is that your position?

Everyone values their own autonomy. That an individual may be willing to accept certain restraints does not invalidate the premise. The question becomes has the person/group accepted those restraints from a position of equal societal participation as those other persons/groups within the society that are not subject to the restraint?

Slavery was maintained by force. Under my framework, I can state that this is an immoral act because it imposes restraints on the personal autonomy of the slaves without their consent. That some slaves internalized the immoral attitudes of their masters, does not make slavery moral, because slaves and masters do not occupy equal positions within the society. If the slaves had once been equal members of the society and made an informed decision to become slaves, then the analysis would be different, but for U.S. slavery, this was certainly not the case.

The same analysis would work for the low/high caste and king/subject example. Did they have an equal and informed choice to adopt their caste status? No, then the caste/feudal system cannot be said to be moral, even if the society accepts the arrangement.

03/24/2011 11:12:33 AM · #824

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

how can something without existence operate upon you to make you outraged?

It doesn't. As Matthew said in point #3, the outrage is a fictional construct derived from rational thought. Look at how Shutterpuppy had to phrase his assumption. Is personal autonomy morally correct because people want their personal autonomy to be respected, or do people want their personal autonomy to be respected because personal autonomy morally correct? Only the first one makes any sense. The base assumption is NOT moral correctness, but the fact that we desire to be free and others probably do, too. We assume a conclusion, a subjective "ought," from that fact. It's a reasoned opinion, but still an opinion that does not exist outside of our imagined desire for it to be true.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

1. God is not real; he is fictional.
2. God caused me to be outraged at (insert outrage)

Don't you think statement 2 would be silly coming from an atheist?

Of course. You've left out any true fact that would form the basis for an opinion that would lead to outrage if violated. Watch:

1. Burning flags is neither right nor wrong. It's really just setting colored fabric on fire, so the notion that flag burning is wrong is fiction.
2. I am morally outraged by a senator burning a U.S. flag, even though flag burning being wrong is a fictional construct.
3. My morality is derived from the symbolism it represents (the objective desire to avoid seeing our country destroyed by someone sworn to serve it), NOT the flag burning itself. It's an opinion reasoned on non-moral grounds.

1. My particular God is real.
2. I am morally outraged by a sin.
3. My morality is derived from the assumption that my God is real and declares certain things to be sinful.

1. God is not real; he is fictional.
2. I cannot be outraged that Adam and Eve committed original sin.
3. Since that concept of sin is wholly dependent upon God being real, there is no rational basis for me to be outraged.

That certainly does NOT mean the atheist is immoral or amoral. He's just not buying into YOUR reasoning for it:

1. Killing another human is neither right nor wrong. Objectively it's really no different than killing a cow or broccoli for dinner, so this is a fictional construct.
2. I am morally outraged that someone killed another human.
3. My morality is derived from the fact that I wouldn't want to be killed or see my family and friends suffer from the loss, and others probably do, too. It's an opinion reasoned on non-moral grounds.