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Post by Vodmeister on Apr 14, 2014 10:49:18 GMT 5
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Post by coherentsheaf on Apr 14, 2014 14:42:52 GMT 5
Premise one seems outright wrong. Objetive moral facts and duties could be facts about the universe.
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Post by theropod on Apr 14, 2014 15:17:13 GMT 5
Moral is a consequence of evolution, it is learned behaviour (learned from other humans).
It is one of the reasons humans don’t (always) shoot each other on sight. That’s favourable for the species’ survivalfrom an evolutionary perspective, because we aren’t solitary animals, and it is favourable for reproductive success.
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Post by coherentsheaf on Apr 14, 2014 19:49:30 GMT 5
Moral is a consequence of evolution, it is learned behaviour (learned from other humans). It is one of the reasons humans don’t (always) shoot each other on sight. That’s favourable for the species’ survivalfrom an evolutionary perspective, because we aren’t solitary animals, and it is favourable for reproductive success. There is actually some controversy whether this is true. Morality could also be explained on the selfish gene perspective, where mutual cooperators outcompete defectors on an individual level. In either case morality is likely a product of evolution and it is likely no more of an objective fact than the tastiness of chocolate. The majority of humanity will generally agree on the proposition "chocolate is tasty" and have a very strong and objective feeling that chocolate tastes good, but it will not be objective in a deeper sense that necessarily implies the existence of god. In fact Craigs entire argument could be reframed into an argument about the tastiness of chocolate implying god. Such an argument would be equivalent in its formal potency to the classical moral argument, but far less persuasive. I think the persuasiveness of the argument derives from the fact that we have a strongly ingrained cultural belief in morality being founded in god, though evidence or proof for this assertion is missing. |
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Post by coherentsheaf on Apr 14, 2014 19:58:22 GMT 5
Just wanted to add: I generally disagree with the assertion that morality is predominantly cultural. Altruistic behavior is predicted in many game theoretic scenarios as best response, and I think or genes have quite some say in us behaving ethically.
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Fragillimus335
Member
Sauropod fanatic, and dinosaur specialist
Posts: 573
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Post by Fragillimus335 on Apr 15, 2014 21:29:10 GMT 5
Morality and kindness is an evolutionarily successful quality, thus is propagated. Hence why most, but not all people are kind and moral. Point one is personal belief, not empirical observation, thus it's completely worthless as an argument.
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Post by Supercommunist on Apr 15, 2014 22:23:55 GMT 5
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Post by Vodmeister on Apr 20, 2014 4:15:38 GMT 5
The problem that we then run into is that Craig might start some bullshit about how without an upper deity, you do not have objective morality, and therefore atheists/agnostics cannot call something evil.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Apr 20, 2014 4:21:16 GMT 5
Yeah, I don't actually think that in the grand scheme of things, morality is exactly a "legit thing". Not saying that we should go around being a bunch of cruel mofos, but, as said by other members here, it's just a thing from evolution.
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Post by Supercommunist on Apr 20, 2014 6:05:33 GMT 5
Richard Dawkins makes a good point against that.
Also even assuming humans are utterly vile creatures without religion, that woudn't be proof of a god/gods existance.
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Post by Vodmeister on Apr 25, 2014 12:27:38 GMT 5
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Post by creature386 on Jan 25, 2016 22:40:23 GMT 5
Just wanted to revive this as I recently had some debates about this: You guys were successfully able to show where the human feeling of, say empathy comes from. However, how would you react to the challenges of apologetics when it comes to providing an objective foundation of morality? Apologetics argue that you could hardly condemn anything without a divine authority and unfortunately, the Dawkins video does not really answer this challenge. It includes a tu quoque ("religion is not better") and the statement that morality requires reason. While I agree with reasonable morality, he still needs to provide said reasoning to construct objective moral principles. I tried to construct such principles in a blog entry, but who says that all are going to agree with my premises and conclusions? An apologetic could argue that reason-based morality would allow everyone to have an own opinion, making it impossible to condemn anything. A common argument is also that virtually any deed doesn't matter if the human life is finite. P.S. I know that this is no argument for the existence of God, but given that apologetics very often say such things to argue that all secularists must become hedonistic straw-nihilists in order to be consistent, I thought this is worth discussing. |
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Post by Venomous Dragon on Jan 26, 2016 1:46:44 GMT 5
Just wanted to revive this as I recently had some debates about this: You guys were successfully able to show where the human feeling of, say empathy comes from. However, how would you react to the challenges of apologetics when it comes to providing an objective foundation of morality? Apologetics argue that you could hardly condemn anything without a divine authority and unfortunately, the Dawkins video does not really answer this challenge. It includes a tu quoque ("religion is not better") and the statement that morality requires reason. While I agree with reasonable morality, he still needs to provide said reasoning to construct objective moral principles. I tried to construct such principles in a blog entry, but who says that all are going to agree with my premises and conclusions? An apologetic could argue that reason-based morality would allow everyone to have an own opinion, making it impossible to condemn anything. A common argument is also that virtually any deed doesn't matter if the human life is finite. P.S. I know that this is no argument for the existence of God, but given that apologetics very often say such things to argue that all secularists must become hedonistic straw-nihilists in order to be consistent, I thought this is worth discussing. Morality is little more than a social construct, it's constantly shifting nature is more than proof of this. One man cannot change this construct without the consent of the majority. That is why it is considered just to have a man sentenced by a jury of his peers as they have, in theory, all been subject to the same morality as he and so can condemn or absolve him based on whether or not his actions go against their society's morality. |
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Post by creature386 on Mar 27, 2016 19:19:03 GMT 5
Soooooo.
Here is my ultimate knock-down of the moral argument.
The argument itself is logically valid as a modus tollens. However, I have problems with both premises.
On P1: Craig completely ignores the possibility of something like Karma in which case objective moral values and duties would be (as coherenthseaf put it) facts of the universe, even under Craig's definition of objective morality. A perhaps more valid first premise would be "If naturalism was true then objective moral values and duties would not exist". I still don't agree with that, but more on that later.
On P2: There is no way we can know this, Craig never presents evidence for its existence (he usually appeals to the emotion and gut feeling of the audience or points out that he and his opponent agree on its existence, so it must exist). WLC makes a distinction between moral ontology and moral semantics, but since objective morality cannot be measured, definitions are the only way we can know about it. Pure reason alone doesn't help. If Craig simply defines God as the greatest being and infers from that that his commandments are moral, this is no less tautological than simply saying "godliness is goodness".
Moving to the definition of objective morality, WLC defines it as "that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so". God surely does not all under "anybody", so I presume the "anybody" only refers to natural "anybodies" which means that saying naturalism does not give us objective morality is another tautology.
Moreover, he makes a false dichotomy between moral absolutism and moral relativism, there is also something in between called moral universalism. For those who are unfamiliar with philosophy:
Moral absolutism = Certain actions are intrinsically right or wrong.
Moral universalism/objectivism ("objective morality" usually refers to this!) = An ethical system that applies universally.
Moral relativism = Moral judgements vary between cultures and people.
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Post by creature386 on Apr 21, 2016 21:05:59 GMT 5
Dawah Man demolishes secular morality:
…and plagiarizes William Lane Craig. Really. Same examples (GWS copulation), same formulations, at least the name-dropping seems to be more or less original (even though the quotes from Dawkins and Krauss sound like stuff I've seen on Conservapeida). I'd say he also copies Ray Comfort a bit because the video title and his main example remind me a lot of classical Bananaman-trolling.
At least the video is really nicely edited.
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