No one is debating whether moral statements exist. However that is different from saying moral statements are TRUE. If there is no ultimate subject that instantiates moral oughts, then all moral statements are entirely subjective and irrelevant. Claiming to be both an atheist and a moral person is an absurdity.

Truth speaks for itself and to use the idea of subjectivity as the be all to end all is an intellectual swing swang, anyway you want to go.

An individual may have his own moral tenor but in no way does this interfere with the individuality of "free men" and place them at cross purposes.

If one acts out criminal behavior insight will show that he hasn't acted freely but was under the coercion of for instance a "feeling" to which he cannot control. He wasn't acting freely and was unable to see the moral tone of the act as objective, not according to his predilections. This is the world of "the devil made me do it", real not withstanding.

A man may do heinous deeds but in no way can any kind of specious reasoning claim that he was acting in "freedom' or in other words as a Man. We are all ensconced in various degrees of freedom and unfreedom in our actions; some we are clear about, others we may act as a matter of coercion or simply accept the commandments of a higher power, which includes the state.

We are in the throes of life as a developing being and we can accept what a
family,nation, state or religion brings to us in the moral sphere and act thereof and still act freely for we know and judge appropriately in the act, as best we can.

But in no way can one logicalize in cold abstractions and state that because Man is involved in these transactions can it be strictly a matter of opinion. the moral tone of an event to which we might act speaks for itself and in this, for those who are unsure, our family, religious and state creeds and whomever, brought forth by "free men" can help us along the way.

By placing ourselves into the deed as a matter of foreknowledge will incite in us our judgmental powers, a gift to which we are indebted, as we act in freedom.

I'm w/ DoOrDoNot. Watching naturalists try to shoe-horn meaning into a mechanistic universe by twisting themselves into mental pretzels is laughable to me. Sean Carrol, in his last book 'The Big Picture' recognizes this and takes his own swing w/ 'Poetic Naturalism' which is his attempt to take the sting out of plain old naturalism. I take that as just another mushy attempt at establishing 'meaning.'

I look at it this way: If 'meaning' were to be put on trial in a criminal case the side of 'no meaning' would easily be able to create reasonable doubt and 'meaning' would not win.

Here is what I said, "I think it is typically morally wrong to kill children. I don't think it is morally wrong to kill children just because I don't want people to do it, but because I think killing children leads to pain, suffering, and unhappiness." It is not just a matter of opinion whether killing children tends to lead to pain, suffering, and unhappiness. So, according to the purely naturalistic moral view I laid out, I am morally right if I am correct that murder for pleasure tends to lead to pain, suffering, and unhappiness, and Ted Bundy is correct if it doesn't. Does that count as an objective moral truth according to you?

Also, how, on the critique you are laying out, does appealing to a higher subjective authority help?

I'm not sure what you mean by "objective moral value," so I can't answer this question.

Sure, some people take pleasure in murder. The bolded is wrong, although I do believe life is valuable (i.e. valued by humans and other sentient beings) and that this is a good reason to not murder people.

What do you mean by an "objective set of oughts"? And how does including a higher subjective authority mean that we can derive that our lives matter from our lives matter to us when otherwise it wouldn't?

Okay? You're the one drawing a bright line between subjective and objective value, not me.

This doesn't follow even if atheism implies nihilism. It is not necessary to be a moral person that you have a consistent moral theory. Even more obviously, you are making the false assumption here that all atheists are naturalists. They are not. I personally know atheists who believe in abstract moral and mathematical objects, or who are just agnostic about materialism or ontological naturalism. These views, as far as I can see, are completely consistent with atheism.

OK, walk outside and look at the view, the trees, rivers, mountains, people or what have you; all you are seeing is the Past. When Lucifer reacted upon Man not only Man but all of nature "fell" and what you are seeing is consequential to the "Fall".

All around us is "necessity", not chance or providence but "necessity" and Man as he walks through this "necessity" adds "chance" to the event and in this recreates the "future".

What we see is the result of a "moral fall", an objectified moral song of the Divine.

Look at the hyena and insight the feeling experience of the hyena as he acts within "nature" but more so as a fixed being. The hyena is a condensed "moral feeling" as is the voracious lion, a condensed moral tone.

Harder to see but the plant and mineral kingdoms all relate to this "Fall" for all of these kingdoms are related to Man . This is the "rejected" kingdoms as Man progressed.

Now Man is not fixed in a condensed moral tone but is open ended and proceeds into the future as co creator of what we see around us. Man is in dynamic movement, sloughing off his skin of deeds and creating the new within a conjoint moral world, the world of the higher Divine.

Just as one can say that we live within the "laws of nature" during our life between birth and death just so in the higher world(s) between death and rebvirth we are within the laws of the moral.

Each being in that world has a moral tone and in that world we live within that moral entelechy. Man is a Moral Tone Poem and as it was said in that fateful time "you shall be like us and learn of good and evil".

This for the condemnatory Christians, if you say that we are all "abject sinners" or worse this is no more than doing a personal condemnation of your fellow man . The Christ is about the future and we are the movements of His Love to all men. The past around us is a picture of what we were, whether good or bad but definitely of a most needed picture for our improvement in the time of Christ .

Here is a proof that there is meaning in the universe.

1) I am in the universe.
2) My life has meaning and purpose.
3) Therefore, there is meaning in the universe.

The only way that you can succeed in showing that there isn't meaning in the universe is by showing that my life doesn't have meaning. It obviously does - I and other people care about my goals, and that caring causes us to take actions to achieve those goals. Thus, those actions have meaning and significance, i.e. to achieve my goals in life. Notice that theists also believe our lives have meaning in this sense.

A common response is that my goals are themselves without some external, pre-existing meaning and so can't impart meaning to my actions. This just seems to misunderstand the nature of human creativity. We can create goals and purposes for our own lives. These goals don't need to draw their significance from anything beyond the fact that we chose them. Sure, a purely human account of meaning isn't as grand as thinking that our goals were created by a perfect version of us, i.e. some kind of god. But that just means my account has less meaning, not that they have no meaning.

Not in the slightest. First you have to establish that minimizing pain suffering and unhappiness is an ought for everyone (an absolute and objective moral statement, not a subjective one) including the people who derive maximum pleasure or goals from inflicting maximum pain suffering and unhappiness and then you have to establish that the pain and suffering caused by Ted Bundys murder is heavier in the negative than the happiness and good feelings he got from it.


Because when two opposing moral statements conflict, the conflict must either be resolved by accessing knowledge about objective moral truths or by appealing to an external source with access to this knowledge. There is no alternative to establish moral truth (ie: if subjective--does not exist in any objectively meaningful way)



A moral truth that exists independent of subjects.



But it doesn't matter what you think because we can find examples of people who disagree, and there is no way to resolve the conflict unless appealing to an external source.



A set of ought and ought not actions---a moral code or law. I answered your other question above. No. You are deriving "lives matter" from "my life matters to me." One does not follow from the other.



I pointed out your error in mistaking the two for each other. They are very different concepts



I didn't say an atheist couldn't follow moral rules or have moral intuition. I said if atheism is true then there is no objective morality. Most atheists don't realize this and try to justify morality anyway, because they DO have moral intuition and don't want to follow their worldview to its logical conclusion--moral and existential nihilism.

Lol what do you mean 'believe in abstract mathematical concepts?' String theory? Brane Theory? Multidimensional shapes?

Please give me examples of atheist points of view regarding belief in supernaturalities when they dismiss the concept of a supernatural god because he can't be proven empirically (wink wink neither can morality)

I snipped the rest bec it's just the standard back and forth that's been going on for who knows how long.

Question: How do you know that you are in the universe?

Observation: Even though the naturalist/determinist has provided the reason beforehand I still find it HILARIOUS that someone should first say 'I have no free will' yet have the nerve to offer an opinion regardless.

If materialism is all there is even your conception of an individual personhood is illusory, due the cause and effect nature of all your brain cells and chemical processes and genes acting without your awareness to give rise to your thoughts, the movements within your parents brains to bring themselves together to create you and on ad infinitum back to the beginning of time. So YOU don't even exist friend you're just a bag of determined chemicals acting out it's evolutionary purpose and the evolution of your mind to believe you are even an individual with a separate and unique personhood has an evolutionary purpose.


Even if what I wrote above is somehow wrong and you do have personhood agency and free will, this is still a subjective statement...

...that this does not follow from. Here's a counterexample to prove it.

1. I am in the universe.
2. I am a god.
3. There are gods in the universe.

Until I establish what 'a god' is my argument is valid. Similarly, until you establish what you mean by 'meaning and purpose' is, so is yours. Or it could be purely subjective, in which case it's meaningless to anyone but you and doesn't prove 3.



Human beings can invent all kinds of nonsense in their heads but that doesn't necessarily make it so.

This is Frankl-esque. Unfortunately you're still stuck in the subjective trap. Just because your life has meaning to you doesn't mean meaning exists or that you're mistaken about the meaning of your life. That's the limitation of a subjective point of view, and why humans seek objective reality.

Lol are you a Gnostic?

You keep asserting as a premise what you should be arguing for. Obviously I disagree that morality requires objective truth or that it must be shown to be absolutely true. Maybe I'm wrong, but I won't be persuaded by you just claiming this.

I'm not assuming utilitarianism, so there is no maximization asumption, although it does seem pretty obvious that Ted Bundy's murders caused more pain and suffering and lack of flourishing than whatever pleasure he might have gotten out of it.

I don't assume that moral statements can't conflict. Humans care about many different things and I don't assume that they are all compatible. There might not be any conflicts if some claims about human nature are universally true, or if there is some kind of overarching meta-theory like contractarianism that can resolve them, but otherwise its seems plausible to me that different values can come in irresolvable conflict with each other.

So? I've not claimed that it is irrational to be immoral. Given some sets of goals it can make sense to be immoral. If someone disagrees with me that killing children leads to more happiness and flourishing, then we have a real disagreement (although one that can be settled using without appeal to the supernatural). But if someone doesn't care about their own or other people's happiness and flourishing, then there is no disagreement. We have different values. I am opposed to their values. I think they are evil. But this isn't a disagreement about facts.

The view of morality that I'm putting forward says that moral actions are actions that lead to human happiness and flourishing. If someone doesn't care about human happiness or flourishing, then (on this view) they don't care about morality. I think they should. But there is no deeper reason behind this why they should. It bottoms out here.

According to this definition, my "subjective" theory of morality also appeals to an objective set of oughts.

I mean they are Platonists about math.

Mathematical platonism.

Wrong in what sense?

He's wrong insofar as most other subjects strongly disagree with his view on murder.

How else can he be wrong?

Other subjects also tend to believe they have "special reasons" for their disagreement, and some of these reasons are decent, but they're not special.

Once again, I don't disagree with your conclusion about naturalists wanting to have it both ways.

I don't know what that means. If a person, in his subjectiveness, believes skunk stands for Stinky Lafeet, that renders the word impotent? What does impotent mean here, the word vanishes, the meaning is lost??

I am unclear what either of those sentences mean. When there is a community standard, it has real effects. People are sanctioned for violating it. The standard exists objectively because the community maintains it.

Are you making a "there is no morality without God" stealth argument?

It is obvious to me that morality objectively exists, just like language.

I explained what I mean by "meaning and purpose" in the section of my post you deleted:

Not sure where you are going with this. Are you going down a radical skepticism route? Otherwise, I know that I am in the universe because I can look down at the ground and up at the sky and see I am on Earth, which is a planet in the universe.

From my understanding it's a bit more nuanced.

Naturalists treat morality as if it were objective (community standards, strict enforcement and so on). Simultaneously they don't believe in an objective morality. There is somewhat of a disconnect here.

I claim no knowledge at all. I carry on as if I do only because I have to although it might be better stated that I find it more satisfying to play along. I've got my 'life is good' days which are fewer than my 'life is a horror' days. Not for me personally bec as far as material things go everything is fine and nobody is dropping bombs on my head but you certainly know what I mean. And it's nothing against you, you are a reasonable person as far as I can tell. It's people like Sam Harris and Krauss that set me off. 'It's all a machine! We don't need anything else!' BS!, says me, BS!

I can live w/ naturalism but I don't have to like it and since there are serious people making radical proposals regarding the nature of consciousness I can hang on to some hope that things aren't as horrible as I think they are.

Yet that is what morality is: what we ought to do/how humans should behave. If you don't agree that moral statements are ought statements then the conversation is over.



This is very Sam Harris. The question remains: Why should we increase human flourishing? Why should we not murder everyone? In naturalism, no subjective moral view is better or worse than any other, so why is your premise correct? It's no different than saying 'chocolate is my favorite flavor of ice cream' and then somehow applying that to everyone. You can't get an ought from an is.




Subjective moral stances do conflict inherently, which is why they're all incomplete. Moral relativism eats itself. Even the statement moral relativism is correct is an inconsistent statement.

Then there are no objective moral truths or there are?

Conflict yes, but two opposing views can't both be correct--->they're either both wrong or one is right.



You're assuming moral truths exist here.

And here.

Why ought we to maximize happiness and flourishing and not killing and mayhem?

No, it can't be settled, because both views are subjective and no one is better or worse than another.

What if my view is to take away peoples happiness and flourishing, for the pure **** of it? Why am I wrong?

You can't derive an ought from an fact anyway.

Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream.

Again, what if I want to maximize human unhappiness and eliminate the human race? Why am I wrong and you right?



Appealing to a set of oughts and that set of oughts being objectively true are two totally different things.



I fail to see how platonic mathematical objects would not be contained within 'naturalism' if they existed.

But that says nothing about how people ought to behave. Jews were second class persons under the Nazi regime; was that morally right, wrong or neutral?

I'm certain that there can be no morality if atheism is true. Same for free will, meaning, purpose, etc. Nihilism is the logical conclusion of materialist atheism. I don't know if the existence of God is the only reason why nihilism might be wrong, but I know it's one of them.



Ok, how must we behave and why is it so?

In how he ought to have behaved.

Please, I'm all ears. What other subjects deal with his view on murder?

Then you are an honest thinker and I appreciate your input. I find most atheists/materialists to be dishonest thinkers. They want their cake and to eat it too w/r morality.

"Other subjects" stands for other people, not school subjects or academic subjects.

No.

Irrelevant. Truth is not determined by consensus or majority vote.

Whose talking about truth?

What truth?

Sounds like you want to have oughts that are determined by some other means, apart from the majority consensus.

I don't want any such oughts.

When dealing with moral questions you're in fact dealing with truth claims.

You don't want oughts apart from majority consensus? I suppose you would probably have been for rampant anti-semitism in Nazi Germany then? Or perhaps for Jews and Christians being subservient to their muslim overlords in Palestine circa 1100 AD? And for Vietnamese reformation under communist rule if you were from North Vietnam, but for democracy if you were from the South?

You seem like a smart guy; I suspect you have more individuality than that!