Well, ok, thanks, that's more than I get from youtube. Doesn't sound very convincing, though.

no, he became a deist.

Determinism eliminates moral responsibility in the deep sense, and compatibilism is just a word game. There's problems with free will too.

As I said, I'm w/ you. Thankfully you know the subject better and can articulate the position. I find the vehemence of the denials interesting although I suppose that when you tell people their ideas are worthless it's to be expected.

Where should I look up what YOU consider to meet the requirements for moral behaviour? Have you forgotten how OP provided you what he considered to meet that requirement?

"In this sense, my view of what makes an action right or wrong is connected to whether it leads to happiness or unhappiness, pain or pleasure, and so on."

Have I just missed where you reciprocated with your thoughts?

How do you know it's not? (perhaps I wouldn't need to ask if I knew what your thoughts actually were).

No-one is doubting this (you've already called Harris both a soft and a hard determinism ITT).



What is it with people that treat discussions like this as if it's combat rather than give and take?

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This doesnt make sense. If God arrives at the (objective) moral laws using intelligence/logic, then the same are available to anyone using intelligence/logic( Although I suppose you can argue that only God is intelligent enough to deduce the objective moral laws?) without the need for a god

Otherwise, if god arrives at moral laws by his own decree, how is this any different to any other subjective set of moral laws, and why should we follow these as opposed to any other?

What planet do you live on? Many people don't make that in a lifetime.

Just an aside, you made a distinction between needing 'meaning' and needing a 'reason to live', so are those different things in your view?


I had a thought about this last night, lmk what you think of it: imagine your favourite fictional character, whether from literature or film or wherever. If you could somehow ask that character, somewhere in the middle of the third act, whether they believed their life was meaningful (or they had a reason to live), would you not expect that they would think so, fictional and all? This is true despite us knowing where their character started, and where they will unfailingly end up, unable to deviate from the story they inhabit.

I've only thought this over for a short time so perhaps it doesn't stand up as well as I hoped, but it seems to me that having meaning in ones life can happen regardless of the amount of freedom we think we have.

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It's fine to argue how God would influence morality, but the whole schtick about God somehow making it all cute and self-evident is just silly.

And the entire notion that "without God morality is simply XX" is just the oldest of old and trite hats. Introducing "god" does nothing to resolve issues of morality. You have to be pointing to specific god(s) and the message that follows.

Let's do the Christian god for example. You're not merely saying that "without God there is no objective morality". You're saying that "Without this god who gave his morality in messages through a burning bush which a man carved into stone and delivered at the mountain, there is no objective morality. It's safe to say that this moves the discussion. But hey, at least people who do this are actually saying something.

And sure, maybe you'll do some intellectual thought experiment where you imagine a faceless God that somehow determines morality. Then you haven't moved an inch. "There is no objective morality without this mysterious being with no recognizable features or evidence". Not exactly compelling. How this approach is somehow seen as decent is a bit beyond me. It's like looking at a difficult equation and going "math is just meaningless without invisible gnomes".

And no, people who don't accept god don't have to be nihilists, naturalists or whatever other box you might want to throw them into. It's just an insultingly lazy way to argue.

He has to pay HIS monthly nut, not most people's. If he can manage to get 5%/yr w/o risk (tough to do) he clears, what?, ~$70K/yr after taxes? He's got to earn more than that/yr now so how's he going to get by w/o a significant reduction in spending? Unless he dips into principal and at only 63 years old that's a really bad idea.

Eh, I don't think the 'fictional character' thing works re finding meaning but it's interesting in this context in that the character's every action is determined by the author and the character will find the nature of everything as the author intends.

I'll try to be more clear: I don't need a god to pray to or ask for things. I don't need an ultimate meaning to my life however you want to define meaning. But if I'm not even capable of self-directed thought, w/o free will to make my own decisions I'd have taken a pass on being brought into a world like this had I been asked in advance. It's a waste of time, an imposition, a personal insult, in my view, if I am deprived of those things.

As I've said 50 times already, if anyone is free to define morality anyway they want to, then no individual definition is any better or worse than any other, and they are all rendered void of substance. So go and look up the definition of subjective and objective. Objective is that which is true, independent of subjectivity. It doesn't matter what you prefer, or what seems right. It only matters what you can justify. Determinists/Atheists can't justify any difference between right and wrong. You can redefine what morality is in order to wiggle out of the conundrum, but it's a weak and dishonest attempt at best.



Is this the part where you misrepresent what I said in a condescending way because that's the only way you can see to score points? I said I suspected Harris was a soft determinist but wasn't sure, and then corrected myself when I found out he is a hard determinist.

Every time I hear this question i imagine a brooding teenager in eye makeup questioning why he has to listen to his parents.

Not an arguement
Not an answer

Language is a pretty arbitrarily defined construct. We've deemed these strange scribbles and sounds to be whatever we've collectively decided they would be, and different people have come up with different ways of doing this. Therefore, all of language is rendered void of substance.

You think I'm being condescending?
Anyway, it was not a misrepresentation, you mentioned Harris three times in succession and each was different, I just thought it was amusing:

However, it was not particularly important, so pls accept my apology.

What do you think morality is being redefined from?

Earlier you listed some random oughts, called them arbitrary, and asked how to establish whether they were true. Would you agree that what makes them arbitrary would be their lack of context, a goal to which they would be directives?

In which case: do you think that all ought's are moral oughts?
(Remember that Original Position describes wellbeing and flourishing issues. Ice cream flavour would not be a moral question. Chess moves would not be a moral question etc.)

If not...what distinguishes a moral ought from any others? This is all I'm trying to understand from you!
(Perhaps you could even list some examples ).

Even great minds, the likes of Wagner, have been known to turn religious in later life. For this slip of the imagination, Wagner was mocked mercilessly and deservedly by Nietzsche.

They say that once you're over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.

DoOrDoNot -

I'd really like your view on a question:
How does the concept (or reality) of a moral authority help us resolve ethical dilemmas?

For example, the ethical dilemma of a young boy having to choose between staying at home and looking after his aging and lonely mother who cannot entirely look after herself vs leaving to defend his country, which is being invaded aggressively and may result in all of their deaths if taken over.

The problem is that you do just keep saying the same thing. I gave you an example of a moral theory that is consistent with naturalism but that isn't relativistic or subjective, and you're just repeating the same criticisms from before. On the account I've sketched out, something doesn't become moral just because you desire it. Rather, morality consists of rules for humans with different and even conflicting desires for living together and through cooperation better achieving their own individual or collective goals. The metric to decide whether a rule is better or worse is how effective those norms are in causing those goals to be achieved. This effectiveness is not subjective. The rule, kill everyone you meet, is objectively less effective in causing people's goals to be achieved than the don't kill everyone you meet rule (since few people have as a goal that they want to be killed).

On the other hand, there is plausibly something I'm giving up here. Many people think that moral reasons should be overriding or inherently justifying. On my account, they are not.* For some life-goals, it is possible to be rationally justified in acting immorally. However, I don't think this is actually against the idea of morality - that is, contrary to your claim, I'm not just redefining morality here. I am fine with adopting a taxonomy of life-goals where the ones consistent with moral rules are classified as acceptable, those that enhances people's flourishing are classified as good, and the ones that are not consistent with these moral rules are classified as evil. People can thus choose to be evil, to have evil desires, etc without being irrational. On this view evil is not based on irrationality, but rather on psychological traits like selfishness, malice and envy, sadism, and so on. Maybe you disagree, but I think a conception of evil as based on psychological traits that cause harm towards others is a more accurate account of the folk idea of "evil' than the claim that evil is necessarily irrational.

*This is just because I'm not a Kantian. If I accepted a Kantian account of practical reason (which can be consistent with naturalism), then even this objection would not apply.

You do too.

Because you haven't addressed them. Your made up moral code is no better or worse than one any one else can give, because it isn't grounded in anything but a polished up hedonism "pain-bad pleasure-good" which is easily shown to be false.

This is just fluff. You're attempting to define morality into existence because you can't justify its existence objectively despite common intuition that it's there.

"Let's make some rules."
"Ok, these ones seem pretty good, but how do we know they're true?"
"Because we agreed to make them and follow them!"

That's fluff, sorry.


"These rules that i made up cause what I want to happen so they must be true!"

Your moral rules are just made up fluff that has no relation to reality. If there is no God, the cold and neutral universe does not care about human flourishing so any morality is just in your head and when your head stops humming so does your (STILL!!!!) subjective reasoning.

Imagine for example that we make these rules and abide by them for 200 years or so. We meet an alien race that not only doesn't think that human flourishing is a good thing but that is hell bent on destroying us because they see us as a dead end of evolution. Where's your morality now? What makes us right and the aliens wrong? (maybe we are a dead-end of evolution that should be destroyed, how do you know?) How can such a statement possibly be appealing to an objective truth? The fact is it's not: you're attempting to define morality into existence and change the meaning of the word objective because you don't want to be a nihilist. Which brings us right back to my starting point in this conversation; if you disbelieve in God, you're a moral nihilist. Instead of holding onto your cake and trying to eat it too, just admit it!

Compatibilism is soft determinism. Apology not needed, but accepted. It was just a silly sidetrack.



No, they are arbitrary because they are created subjectively. It doesn't matter whether the made up rules resonate something in you, either, as that's a subjective judgment as much as the rules that did so are a subjective concoction.

I'm not sure about this but I don't think it matters really. In my example, ice cream flavor was used in a moral context. "You ought to eat only chocolate ice cream" could be just as much a moral rule as "thou shalt not kill." The conversation shouldn't deviate into moral and non-moral freedom imo

Clearly though, there is a correct chess move in every position in every game. We simply don't have the computing power to know what it is yet. Ever thought morality is the same kind of thing?

Um, well all questions of oughts could be moral ones.

It's not a moral code, it is a meta-ethical account of the nature of morality. Your claim is that only moral realist* accounts of morality are genuine. Moral realism is the claim that there are moral facts. I am claiming that there are moral facts - facts about how effective rules of conduct (or institutions, character traits, etc) are in enhancing people's well-being, flourishing, and goal satisfaction. This is directly addressing the concerns you have raised about naturalism and morality. I don't know how to more directly address your criticism than that. You claim that naturalist morality can't be x. I give an example of naturalist morality that is x. Okay?

As for hedonism, that has always been your own dogmatism about atheists. I've never claimed to base goodness on hedonism.

You're right, that is just fluff. Next time respond to my actual view rather than something you make up.

This is what moral philosophy is, making up and defending theories about the nature of morality.

I always find it odd when theists claim that (a) you have complete freedom in a godless universe to accept whatever values you want (b) you should view a godless universe as a cold, dark, depressing universe. If I have complete freedom, I think I'll adopt a happier outlook.

What makes us right is that the goal of destroying humanity isn't effective in promoting sentient flourishing and goal satisfaction. If it is, then they would be morally correct to destroy humanity. FWIW, you're just describing a secular version of the expectations of some popular Christian eschatologies regarding the destruction of the world in the end times, so this is hardly a unique claim of my viewpoint.

Also, continuing to assert your original claim is foolish. The obvious error in this claim has been pointed out to you numerous times and you've ignored it. Not all atheists are naturalists, nor is naturalism implied by atheism. Thus, all of your arguments, which presuppose naturalism, don't apply to atheism, but only to a subgroup of atheists. I haven't focused on this because I thought it was an interesting exercise to defend a purely naturalistic account of morality, but you really shouldn't keep repeating your obviously false original claim.

*I suppose it is possible that you would require something even more extreme, like you have to believe in an objective realm of moral ideas/objects. I'll just point out that on this account Kant would also be counted as a subjectivist, as he placed the locus of morality in the nature of willing rather than in correspondence to moral objects.

But atheism leads to nihilism.

Good point. Quite novel actually. He ought to accept this already, else he might accidentally believe that my "ought to" has moral grounding.

Lol excuse me? What you're doing this entire time has been descriptive only? Please. You've been inherently prescriptive since the beginning, which is the difference between is and ought. Ought is prescriptive by DEFINITION. Now justify your prescription in an objective way. You're not gonna wiggle your way out of this with long-windedness.


I dunno what you mean by accounts in this sentence, but the rest of it is self-contradictory. Either morals are objectively real or they are not objectively real. If you believe they are not real, then you must either stick to the realm of descriptive ethics or justify prescriptions from an objective point of view. In order to justify prescriptive ethics from an objective point of view you must transcend your subjective experience which brings us back to the first point.

Moral realism is the claim there are objective moral facts ie: not contingent upon subjective interpretation. If you are a moral anti-realist then you don't believe objective moral facts exist. Consequently, any talk of prescriptive moral values is absurd. What youre doing here is attempting to describe why we wrongly feel morality exists and then extrapolating out that that's a good reason to follow your moral prescriptions. That is logically impossible. As I've said 13 times, you cannot derive an ought from an is.

Happiness doesn't really exist if it's just a brain chemical doing stuff to your neurons. Similarly morality doesn't really exist if it's an evolutionary mechanism for the furtherment of the species.



That is in fact the first part of your view whether or not you realize it.



Then they aren't values, unless they comport with those values that are objectively true. They're just a preference, like ice cream flavor.

That's because you haven't followed your base assumptions about the reality you live in to their natural conclusions....yet. Maybe if you stop and think through your position instead of holding on to your intuition about the realness of morality despite not believing in the realness of morality you will one day.



Wait. Now it's sentient flourishing? You said it was human flourishing. Way to move the goal posts! I assume you are then 100% a vegan? And that you are morally opposed to animal predation? Better hope plants aren't ever found to have a level of sentience or you're in real trouble!!



No it hasn't.

I think you think this because you find it acceptable to fiddle with definitions to mitigate your cognitive dissonance about the inherent contradictoriness of your position. It's already been pointed out to you that platonic forms are contained within the natural universe if they are real.

Do,

Did you become a theist in the past few years? Your earlier posts in rgt seem a bit contradictory to some of your recent ones.