Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Position
Notice here that there is no causal relationship being posited here. Instead, you are uncertain about whether the antecedent is true or false and thus noting that if it were to be true, then some other claim would then also be true (although not because the antecedent is true).
Thanks for the clarification. That’s my exact conception of a conditional, but perhaps I’m using language in which that wasn’t made clear. From when you first presented your argument (#50) my initial response (#55) along with several other replies either to you or Subfallen:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Position
2) If morality is objective in our world, then gratuitous evil exists in our world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duffe
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how the consequent in (2) follows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duffe
I understand the argument … What I’m not getting is why gratuitous evil* follows from objective morality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duffe
I get the argument. What I’ve been saying is I don’t see how the consequent in (2) follows…
Quote:
Originally Posted by duffe
That’s a secondary judgment that doesn’t factor into the acceptance or rejection of the conditional. In formation, the conditional is true if the truth of consequent ‘necessarily follows’ from the truth of the antecedent. (and yes, I understand that there's no implication that antecedent is actually true.) However, that it 'necessarily follows' is the truthmaker of the conditional and why the proposition is accepted as true or if it doesn’t necessarily follow rejected as false, not that one thinks the antecedent is false.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duffe
The rule of the pure conditional in traditional logic is: if A is true then it necessarily follows that B is true. So, I’d accept 1 & 3 because the consequents seem (or they might per definition of terms) to follow the antecedents. However, I’d reject 2 as being a pure conditional since I don’t see a logical sequence between the antecedent and consequent.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Position
That is what I am saying in (4). I would merely assert that gratuitous evil exists, but I want to show the kind of way a nihilist can do this without contradicting her own beliefs. She objects to the claim that gratuitous evil exists because she doesn't think there is such a thing as evil, but she also thinks that if there were such a thing, then gratuitous evil would exist.
If there were such a thing as what?
a)
If there were such a thing as gratuitous evil,
then there would be gratuitous evil.
b)
If there were such a thing as objective morality,
then there would be gratuitous evil.
If all you’re saying is (a) then the nihilist can just as well enter:
(p) If there is God, then there is not gratuitous evil.
Do you see what I’m getting at? I’m saying to accept (4) she needs to argue as in (b) and then provide a reason why she thinks the consequent
would be true if the antecedent
were true. For example, with the second premise from my parallel argument:
(2’) If there is gratuitous evil, then there is objective morality.
So, even though the theist doesn’t believe the antecedent is true, he can say that if it
were true the consequent
would be true and support that position arguing something to the effect of, “there’s no crime if there’s no law,” giving him grounds for accepting the premise as true. And since it's the truth of the logical sequence that provides the contradiction in your argument’s conclusion any merit whatsoever, that sequence must be established. Otherwise all one is doing is saying “there are gratuitous evils" and you don’t need the argument at all.
That’s what I mean by arguing in good faith (not to be taken as any sort of ad hominem). That is, as to the truth or falsity of a conditional, if the consequent really follows the antecedent, whether logically or casually, and irrespective of whether or not either by itself is true, then the conditional is true. If, on the other hand, the consequent does not follow from the antecedent, even if both are obviously true, the conditional is false. In other words, a proposition like, “if X, then I am dead,” if no definition of X is provided then the proposition is false at face value. Sure I can say that 'if I were dead, then I'd be dead', but I hardly see how that is any sort of advancement in knowledge.
Now if you or the logic you employ doesn’t mandate your adhering to the above, that’s fine, but I’m simply not interested in engaging in such arguments, because I simply don’t consider doing so as arguing, but simply asserting.