Inherently wrong actions?

[serp777]

You're saying that since we're fallible, that we can't come up with a good approximation of a nearly (if not absolutely) perfect code. So because of that, we fallible beings have to admit that genocide, slavery, misogyny, pedophilia etc. can be moral under majority rule. It's between equal rights for all individuals, or adhere to the "moral" double standard imposed by the biggest group or alliance.



You're right, there is no proof, because we haven't polled the Earth's population to see who desires good order, and more importantly, to see who doesn't--and why. After 1,000,000 years, I think we can come up with a moral code which satisfies the 97% who want good order (mine is damn near perfect). The only alternative is to give free reign to subjective morality and thus to despotism and/or anarchy--which is where the Establishment looks like it's taking us as fast as they can now.

You're saying that since we're fallible, that we can't come up with a good approximation of a nearly (if not absolutely) perfect code. So because of that, we fallible beings have to admit that genocide, slavery, misogyny, pedophilia etc. can be moral under majority rule. It's between equal rights for all individuals, or adhere to the "moral" double standard imposed by the biggest group or alliance.

Many of those things were not considered immoral in humanity's ancient past. This is just moral relativism. I thought my analogy with science would make things clear. A good approximation of morality isn't the same thing as objective morality for the same reason that a scientific theory isn't the same thing with empirical certainty. ALso its realistic to admit that majority rule could implement all of those things. If the Nazis had won WW2 and you were a german citizen, you'd probably be saying the same thing here about us fallible beings having to admit that not committing genocide against the Jews can be moral under majority rule. The point is that you're assuming you have moral superiority when I haven't seen you demonstrate at all any of your moral assumptions as being objectively moral. In my opinion I agree with you, but i simply don't think i have the authority to claim moral superiority with such limited knowledge. Only someone with infinite knowledge could make objective claims on morality.

You're right, there is no proof, because we haven't polled the Earth's population to see who desires good order, and more importantly, to see who doesn't--and why. After 1,000,000 years, I think we can come up with a moral code which satisfies the 97% who want good order (mine is damn near perfect).

What evidence do you have that its near perfect? How do you know perfect is even attainable? It may be that there will always be moral tradeoffs and certain problems that simply cannot be resolved in morality. And also how is an argument from popularity a justification for a certain morality? Even if 100% of the population agreed with your code that wouldn't make it objectively right. There might be an alien civilization with an entirely different, but equally functional code of morality. And if you polled all the humans that ever live I can guarantee you most of them would think your code was awful and blasphemous. You're assuming that humans today are capable of determining moral absolutes. How are you certain that we have superior morals to the point where we can claim we have the authority to declare objective morals?

 

[serp777]

I'm sorry that you do not trust your own conscience. Well, I know that rape is always wrong. It is wrong under all circumstances. And I will live or die holding to that truth. And I believe that it is tragic that we have world leaders like you.

Again nobody is saying that rape is sometimes right. People are just looking at the LESSER OF TWO EVILS.

Fortunately the world is sensible enough to follow the obvious logic that it is better to allow one immoral thing to occur than to let humanity go extinct. Its a numbers game. The world values utilitarianism and its obvious why they do--they somewhat try to benefit the most number of people because that's the role of the government.

Would you rather have 7 billion deaths occur (letting people die is immoral in my opinion) or let one heinous rape be committed?

Well 7 billion is > 1. Fortunately our leaders can count.1 rape is the lesser of two evils in this case.

 

[serp777]

I know this comment was not intended for me, but I'd like to say this...actually, I have the moral authority to declare to you what is right and what is wrong, because God has declared to all of us what is right and what is wrong, and thanks to God, now I know as well. And so I am telling you now, call it a dictation if you like, that anyone who intentionally harms an innocent person has done something that is inherently wrong. Since you do not know God, your opinion doesn't really matter.

Well you haven't demonstrated any of that and you're about as trustworthy as a Muslim or Sikh or a Protestant or a Calvinist or a Buddhist or whatever. My opinion matters as much as yours does until you can demonstrate that you have a personal hotline to God. You can dictate all you wan't but nobody will accept your claims. Kim Jung Ill has also claimed and dictated that he is a divine moral authority and everyone has just as much reason to believe him than to believe you. I'd also make the case that you probably don't know God. You think you know God but that only means that you could be very deluded. If you were delusional you wouldn't know you were deluded. So everyone has a basis to be very skeptical of you.

Also where did God declare what is right or wrong and why do you get to decide where he did? I know many religious people who will disagree with you who also claim that they know God.

 

[serp777]

If everybody in a society stole from each other it would be detrimental to the society as a whole. Therefore stealing is wrong/immoral. The solution to starvation isn't stealing but working towards a society without starving people.And now you are confusing murder with killing. Murder is per definition always wrong, killing somebody isn't wrong if it's more beneficial than detrimental to the society and people in it.

If everybody in a society stole from each other it would be detrimental to the society as a whole. Therefore stealing is wrong/immoral.

Why are you assuming everybody in a society would steal if only a few people stole because their families were dying? Also why is it wrong to do something that's detrimental to society? What if the society is immoral?

Murder is per definition always wrong, killing somebody isn't wrong if it's more beneficial than detrimental to the society and people in it.

But anyways Per what definition? The definition says nothing about morality:

"the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another."

You're not responding to what I said though. I'm saying what if murdering someone in a premeditated, and unlawful fashion benefited the society? Are you saying that as long as its beneficial to society, its moral to do an unlawful premeditated killing? Are you saying that an unlawful premeditated killing is different than a murder if there is a benefit to society? But again why is benefiting the society moral?

 

[serp777]

Organisms evolved instincts like the survival instinct and the instinct to procreate long before humans appeared on the scene. Organisms started to live in communities and evolve concepts of which behaviors were beneficial and which were detrimental long before we appeared and started talking about morals and ethics. We are just building on this foundation. Vampire bats share food with starving roost mates. We share food with starving humans. Just evolved instinctive behavior we evolved since the behavior is beneficial for social species.

That doesn't address what I said:

"Only someone who had infinite knowledge and was perfectly good could dictate what is right and wrong. This is the only way something could be inherently wrong. You simply don't have the moral authority to dictate what is right and wrong as a fundamental constant of the universe."

What does evolution have to do with objective morals? Just beacuse something evolved doesn't make it inherently moral or immoral. Humans also evolved a tendency for murder, war, rape, chaos, destruction, infanticide, etc, etc. These things were actually probably beneficial in the long run since the help push human evolution and the development of human civilization. Without strife and death and destruction and war and everything else governments wouldn't have had a need to form. We'd probably still be hunter gatherers. So that stuff must be moral since it drives the beneficial development of human societies right?

 

[ArtieE]

You're not responding to what I said though. I'm saying what if murdering someone in a premeditated, and unlawful fashion benefited the society?

There were eight questions in that post alone I'll focus on one. Obviously it is more detrimental to a society if it's citizens unlawfully go around murdering other citizens than any benefit the society might reap from the death of one person. A society can't allow it's citizens to go around murdering other citizens no matter how beneficial it might be for the society to get rid of some of the murdered individuals.

 

[ArtieE]

What does evolution have to do with objective morals? Just beacuse something evolved doesn't make it inherently moral or immoral.

I didn't subjectively choose to be born with a survival instinct. It's inherent in my nature. And since it's inherent in my nature it's inherently wrong/bad/immoral to do something to me so that I don't survive.

Humans also evolved a tendency for murder, war, rape, chaos, destruction, infanticide, etc, etc. These things were actually probably beneficial in the long run since the help push human evolution and the development of human civilization. Without strife and death and destruction and war and everything else governments wouldn't have had a need to form. We'd probably still be hunter gatherers. So that stuff must be moral since it drives the beneficial development of human societies right?

I have no idea what our societies would look like now in an alternate world with a different development.

 

[ArtieE]

Also where did God declare what is right or wrong and why do you get to decide where he did?

Matthew 7:12
The Golden Rule
Do to others what you would have them do to you.

1 Samuel 15:3
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Those verses seem a bit contradictory to me.

 

[Nous]

You are trying to mix two schools to thought into one and it is simply impossible to do so. Philosophy has changed over years and years yet math doesn't. How can you meld the two into one?

No, I have not tried to "mix" or "meld" philosophy and mathematics. I merely pointed out what was noted or alluded to in both of the peer-reviewed articles I linked to, that objective moral facts are analogous to objective mathematical facts and objective logical facts, in that such facts are deduced from premises that are true by definition (rather than premises that are mere empirical facts).

BTW: new discoveries are made in mathematics every day, much more often that philosophical ideologies change.

In some Islamic and African countries, it is perfectly acceptable to rape a child.

I am unaware of any such thing. Provide your source. As far as I know, rape of a 4-year-old child is illegal in every country of the world. At the very least, there is obviously an indisputable and nearly unanimous consensus that rape of a 4-year-old child is wrong.

Subjective simply means that it is not based on fact, it is based on emotion and thought and fears and so on. If you want a dictionary definition, I am sure google has one available.

Evidently it is you who needs to look at a dictionary: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/subjective?s=t

The conditions that constitute the middle term of my syllogism above ("acts that harm a person, are perpetrated without that person's consent and are perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure"), by which to determine that an act is (by definition) immoral, are simple statements of facts.

 

[Nous]

Again nobody is saying that rape is sometimes right. People are just looking at the LESSER OF TWO EVILS.

What? Why do you claim rape is "evil"?

Again, advocacy of any species of moral anti-realism leaves the advocate without any reason to claim that any act is truly, inherently or objectively wrong.

 

[Nous]

I don't believe that a moral proposition is "true."

So now you're saying that this sentence is not true: "Rape is evil."

You're stating the conclusion of your argument as a premise

False. I have not stated any invalid argument anywhere (ever) in which a premise is merely repeated as the conclusion.

You're assuming that morals are objective by saying that a moral proposition can be true or false and as such you have not demonstrated how you've arrived at the conclusion that moral propositions can be true or false.

Well, you have asserted to rape is "evil," then you asserted that such propositions are not true. At least I am avoiding the logical inconsistency of asserting that I believe something that I know to be false.

In the argument I stated, I did not deduce that conclusion ("rape of a 4-year-old child is immoral") from the premise that moral propositions are true or false. The conclusion is deduced from the conditions that make up the middle term ("acts that harm a person, are perpetrated without that person's consent and are perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure"), which are consistent with the definition of "immoral".

P1: All human acts that harm a person, are perpetrated without that person's consent and are perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure are immoral.
P2: Rape of a 4-year-old child is a human act that harms the child, is perpetrated without that child's consent and is perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure.
C: Therefore, rape of a 4-year-old child is immoral.

I say that raping is immoral and despicable since rape victims are traumatized

That is one of the objective criteria included in the middle term of my argument, which deduces that rape of a 4-year-old is immoral. Those criteria are consistent with the definition of "immoral," and are how we can determine that an act is objectively immoral.

Unless you can find that one of the premises of my valid is not true, then the proposition that is the conclusion is a true proposition. Right?

 

[Sonofason]

Excuse me but I have been one of the most vocal in saying no to that. Broad brush you are painting us all here with, no?

Sorry Jo, but I did say thank God for " those on this thread who have finally convinced me..." I did not suggest that you were one of "those" people. For the record, I have noticed that you have not submitted to the false claim that raping an 8 year old child is not inherently wrong. When one is reading a comment by another person, especially with regard to important matters, I believe it is important to read every single word. I assure you, I do not say anything I do not intend to say. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.

 

[Sonofason]

Again nobody is saying that rape is sometimes right. People are just looking at the LESSER OF TWO EVILS.

Fortunately the world is sensible enough to follow the obvious logic that it is better to allow one immoral thing to occur than to let humanity go extinct. Its a numbers game. The world values utilitarianism and its obvious why they do--they somewhat try to benefit the most number of people because that's the role of the government.

Would you rather have 7 billion deaths occur (letting people die is immoral in my opinion) or let one heinous rape be committed?

Well 7 billion is > 1. Fortunately our leaders can count.1 rape is the lesser of two evils in this case.

No serp, this thread was started by someone who believes that there are no inherently wrong actions. And I see many of you advocating that point of view.

You are wrong. Children get raped all the time, and it is a terrible crime, and it is always wrong. No civilization has ever suffered horrible deaths and extinction because someone prevented a rape. It was a stupid and ridiculous hypothetical, and I'm not buying into it. There has not been a case that I know of where stopping the rape of an 8 year old girl was the lesser of two evils, such that the rape ought not have been prevented. If there is such an existing case, or if there ever has been one, please inform me of it.

 

[Sonofason]

Well you haven't demonstrated any of that and you're about as trustworthy as a Muslim or Sikh or a Protestant or a Calvinist or a Buddhist or whatever. My opinion matters as much as yours does until you can demonstrate that you have a personal hotline to God. You can dictate all you wan't but nobody will accept your claims. Kim Jung Ill has also claimed and dictated that he is a divine moral authority and everyone has just as much reason to believe him than to believe you. I'd also make the case that you probably don't know God. You think you know God but that only means that you could be very deluded. If you were delusional you wouldn't know you were deluded. So everyone has a basis to be very skeptical of you.

Also where did God declare what is right or wrong and why do you get to decide where he did? I know many religious people who will disagree with you who also claim that they know God.

Your bigotry is loud and clear. So you are saying that all Muslims, and all Protestants, and Calvinists and Buddhists are untrustworthy. This is very good to know. I will remember this.

Please name the religion which declares that raping an 8 year old child is morally good.

 

[Sonofason]

Matthew 7:12
The Golden Rule
Do to others what you would have them do to you.

1 Samuel 15:3
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Those verses seem a bit contradictory to me.

No this fits the Golden Rule perfectly in my opinion.

"The Amalekites were "the first one of the nations" to launch an unprovoked attack [5] on the Israelites after the Exodus, at Rephidim near Mount Sinai. As a consequence, YHWH decreed ultimate extinction for the Amalekites (Num. 24:20; Exod. 17:8-16; Deut. 25:17-19)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalek

If someone, for no good reason, unprovoked, tries to kill me, I will kill them if I am able. And just as one would expect from the Golden Rule, just as I would expect, that if I try to kill someone for no good reason, unprovoked, I would expect them to try to kill me. Yes, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

If I try to kill someone for no good reason, I should be killed. That is the Golden Rule, because that is what I would want to do to them if they tried to kill me for no good reason.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Well, I get it. It seems that you're right. It's not a perfect precept for all people. Try to remember who it was that Jesus was speaking to.

"And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying..." The Golden Rule.

He was speaking to his disciples. I do not believe they were masochists.

I wouldn't be so sure they weren't. Sadomasochism is a big thing in most forms of Christianity. You adore a human sacrifice that was tortured to death, for starters.

 

[Sonofason]

I wouldn't be so sure they weren't. Sadomasochism is a big thing in most forms of Christianity. You adore a human sacrifice that was tortured to death, for starters.

That is a quite demented perspective. We do not adore the fact that Jesus was tortured. Any true Christian is horrified by what he had to endure for our sake. It breaks our hearts. But then, what do you know about it? You did not have the wherewithal to endure faith in Christ. You never knew Him, and well, He never knew you either.

 

[Sonofason]

So now you're saying that this sentence is not true: "Rape is evil."

False. I have not stated any invalid argument anywhere (ever) in which a premise is merely repeated as the conclusion.

Well, you have asserted to rape is "evil," then you asserted that such propositions are not true. At least I am avoiding the logical inconsistency of asserting that I believe something that I know to be false.

In the argument I stated, I did not deduce that conclusion ("rape of a 4-year-old child is immoral") from the premise that moral propositions are true or false. The conclusion is deduced from the conditions that make up the middle term ("acts that harm a person, are perpetrated without that person's consent and are perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure"), which are consistent with the definition of "immoral".

P1: All human acts that harm a person, are perpetrated without that person's consent and are perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure are immoral.
P2: Rape of a 4-year-old child is a human act that harms the child, is perpetrated without that child's consent and is perpetrated merely for the perpetrator's pleasure.
C: Therefore, rape of a 4-year-old child is immoral.

That is one of the objective criteria included in the middle term of my argument, which deduces that rape of a 4-year-old is immoral. Those criteria are consistent with the definition of "immoral," and are how we can determine that an act is objectively immoral.

Unless you can find that one of the premises of my valid is not true, then the proposition that is the conclusion is a true proposition. Right?

It's a slam dunk Nous.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

But then, what do you know about it?

More than you, obviously. It's called psychology.

Enjoy:
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gfj_sadomasochism.htm

 

[Sonofason]

More than you, obviously. It's called psychology.

Enjoy:
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gfj_sadomasochism.htm

If you think I'm gonna read something with a label "bad news about Christianity" you're fooling yourself. I never buy into lies of lost atheists.