Syria's has irrecoverably lost its culture - HOLY SHIT

[Alyrium Denryle]

Those looting artifacts aren't going to listen to your carefully constructed philosophical/ethical arguments.

And they are going to care about claims regarding ultimate truth in the universe that dont derive from Islam, why, exactly?

If Utilitarianism is about maximizing well-being, there is nothing wrong with that beyond the problem of its application, hence my point about slavery being acceptable under utilitarianism, because, like any philosophical system it can be applied in multiple ways. It may not be how those who invented it intended, but it would be perfectly acceptable for me to say: "Ok, I am a utilitarian, I find that to maximize the well-being of my group I will use this here Death Star to annihilate a planet of some other group and thus prevent a galaxy wide civil war and untold carnage."

Problem. Contrary to what Starglider might think on the subject, it is not logically consistent to favor one's own family in a Utilitarian calculation, let alone another sapient species or civilization. The only reason there are ever logically consistent differences between entities in a utilitarian calculation is a difference in experiential capacity. Likely based on thresholds for various stimuli and actions rather than a continuous scale that covers everything.

(for example, rather than saying a rat is worth 1/10th of a person for all calculations, is more accurate to say that rats experience physical pain the exact same way we do, can experience immediate stress the same way or close, but cannot experience existential angst at all).

The degree to which weight is placed on different entities has to be grounded in this little thing called "reality".

One must also take the Best path, not just the path that is less bad than the worst one. Avoiding war without destruction is the best option, unless war is inevitable (it only takes one party to start one, and there are instances where war is the preferable alternative. Take WWII for example. Had it not been fought, Hitler would have committed genocide against all of Russia). In which case, geocide is likely not the best option for conducting that war.

Normative ethical systems are derived not from some sort of cosmic truths, but through the logically consistent application of our common moral experience. They are a attempts (that succeed to varying degrees) to strip away all the biases and other cultural BS, and create an objective means by which we can direct our behavior based on things every human (at least) can understand. In that sense, they are Universal, but not Absolute. Specific actions are not proscribed or prescribed. Principles get applied to solve problems, and the actions taken derive from those principles based on the circumstances of the problem.

[madd0ct0r]

however, a utlitarian system can be modified to accomadte uncertainty.

I'm 100% certain of my own response to a stimulus, so I count 100% of that in my calcualtion. I'm only 80% sure of my own families repsonse, since I know them well but they can surprise me. as the degrees of distance from me increase, so my certainty of response decreases and I weight those elements less in the calculation.

[Alyrium Denryle]

however, a utlitarian system can be modified to accomadte uncertainty.

I'm 100% certain of my own response to a stimulus, so I count 100% of that in my calcualtion. I'm only 80% sure of my own families repsonse, since I know them well but they can surprise me. as the degrees of distance from me increase, so my certainty of response decreases and I weight those elements less in the calculation.

Sure, but there are certain commonalities. For example, being stabbed tends to be painful, and we can assume that the degree to which being stabbed is painful is more or less the same for everyone once location and knife size are controlled for. At the very least, one can rank-order and semi-quantify the mean value for most of the things that actually matter for the sorts of problems utilitarianism can actually handle (it it afterall a tool. a philosophical tool, but a tool, and not all tools are equally useful across all conditions).

Response differences only vary for things one would generally expect to vary, such as emotional responses to being called a douchebag.

[madd0ct0r]

True that. In a discmission on abstract cultural value, is it a strong tool?

[cmdrjones]

Those looting artifacts aren't going to listen to your carefully constructed philosophical/ethical arguments.

And they are going to care about claims regarding ultimate truth in the universe that dont derive from Islam, why, exactly?

If Utilitarianism is about maximizing well-being, there is nothing wrong with that beyond the problem of its application, hence my point about slavery being acceptable under utilitarianism, because, like any philosophical system it can be applied in multiple ways. It may not be how those who invented it intended, but it would be perfectly acceptable for me to say: "Ok, I am a utilitarian, I find that to maximize the well-being of my group I will use this here Death Star to annihilate a planet of some other group and thus prevent a galaxy wide civil war and untold carnage."

Problem. Contrary to what Starglider might think on the subject, it is not logically consistent to favor one's own family in a Utilitarian calculation, let alone another sapient species or civilization. The only reason there are ever logically consistent differences between entities in a utilitarian calculation is a difference in experiential capacity. Likely based on thresholds for various stimuli and actions rather than a continuous scale that covers everything.

(for example, rather than saying a rat is worth 1/10th of a person for all calculations, is more accurate to say that rats experience physical pain the exact same way we do, can experience immediate stress the same way or close, but cannot experience existential angst at all).

The degree to which weight is placed on different entities has to be grounded in this little thing called "reality".

One must also take the Best path, not just the path that is less bad than the worst one. Avoiding war without destruction is the best option, unless war is inevitable (it only takes one party to start one, and there are instances where war is the preferable alternative. Take WWII for example. Had it not been fought, Hitler would have committed genocide against all of Russia). In which case, geocide is likely not the best option for conducting that war.

Normative ethical systems are derived not from some sort of cosmic truths, but through the logically consistent application of our common moral experience. They are a attempts (that succeed to varying degrees) to strip away all the biases and other cultural BS, and create an objective means by which we can direct our behavior based on things every human (at least) can understand. In that sense, they are Universal, but not Absolute. Specific actions are not proscribed or prescribed. Principles get applied to solve problems, and the actions taken derive from those principles based on the circumstances of the problem.

#1 Hopefully, they'll recognize certain older moral systems that are far superior and leave Islam.
#2 I accept the rat example, as a rhetorical construction, but are we so sure rats CAN'T experience existential thought/angst?
#3 Thank you for the more detailed info on utilitarianism, but without 'cosmic truths' or 'cultural BS,' how do you determine the 'common moral experience'?

[cmdrjones]

I interpret this as an argument in favor of moral absolutism (or moral universalism ... the two are different, and I honestly can't tell from your posts which you find a more appropriate label). Essentially, you seem to be saying to Thanas that you need moral absolutism in order to make moral judgments, because otherwise everything is relative. Is this a correct interpretation of your argument?

My response was to bring up normative ethical constructs (I meant to only use utilitarianism as an example so you understood what I meant; you are right insofar as the specific discussion of utilitarianism was an aside. We can just as easily talk about other deontological and teleological constructs, pragmatism, contractualism, egoism, or any of another dozen subtypes), and pointing out that these are not novel concepts, and in fact have been a major part of philosophy since at least the times of Kant. Since I may not have been clear about the implications of this argument, I will be here: the point of these normative systems is that they provide us with a way to measure moral and ethical worth (in your words "judge actions, practices, mores etc") without either appealing to something as stringent as the moral absolutism you seemed to advocate or the complete moral relativism you seemed to think everyone else was advocating. To put it another way, it is possible to discuss the moral and ethical worth of a specific action within a specific context without making blanket statements like "X is always wrong, all the time, no exceptions" OR "Well we think X is wrong but in culture Y it isn't so who are we to judge?"

Do you understand now the point that I was trying to make, with respect to your quoted statement above?

Bear with me as I try to answer this.

Yes, that is an accurate summation of my point. I am not sure if moral absolutism or moral universalism fits best, so I'll go with yes.

Now, to clarify, I am sure that all of the philosophical constructs you mention are fine for doing what they do, and, as I told my brother who is a Humanist Atheist when he and I had this discussion: yes, you can be 'good without God' by human standards. We can be trained to use these philosophical tools to construct a moral system and stick to it, and by the laws of man and society be 'good' people. If, we are using our (IMHO) God given intellects to discern right from wrong and act upon our ideas of what is right and wrong.
Now, where that idea begins to break down is with the follow up question of "is there an ultimate truth to the universe?" If so, then anything that doesn't conform to that truth while appearing great and wonderful in our eyes will ultimately be imperfect, and ultimately evil.
Now, I have encountered many objections to that idea, mainly due to differing ideas on what 'evil' means. To me, evil is imperfection which could be restated as sin. Also, a salient point is that there is no hierarchy of sin. Therefore you are either sinful or you are not. This does not conflict with the traditional definition of the incarnation, ministry, and Resurrection of Christ.

For example, it is right in the blog founders signature that "It is not immoral for God to kill babies or for one to do so at God's command."
In a universe with an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, that statement is ABSOLUTELY true. Now, according to MY BELIEF, this, while true, is irrelevant because #1 we have free will and thus brought sin into the universe (because before we existed i.e. as conscious beings, how could there be sin? Everything was as he made it, right?) #2 we have the example of Abraham and Isaac, so blood sacrifice is no longer necessary (which was only necessary because of humans anyway) #3 So therefore, the only way that God could either kill babies or order them to be killed NOW, would be for him to crack open heaven and change the rules of the universe on the spot.
#4 to sum up: God's universe, God's rules.

I spoke with one young man who left the Jehova's witnesses and became an atheist. IN part because he was a basic philosophy class and they were analyzing the idea of true altruism, and the professor made the case that there was no true altruism because as humans we all derive pleasure from being nice, which makes it not perfectly altruistic (I'm paraphrasing here). To him, this made the universe a dark, cold and uncaring place and thus he lost what faith he had and ceased to believe God exists.
He said to me: Hey SSG So-and-so, you seem pretty smart, why do you believe in God?"

I replied by recounting the story of the woman at the temple (Mark 12:42) from the new testament and how Jesus pointed out that woman who gave a tiny amount compared to the Pharisees was actually doing more than they were proportionally.
He responded, "That doesn't prove anything, she probably gained cheers or good feeling from it, or even if she didn't KNOW he was going to point her out, she felt good by serving God!"
And I said, yes, that's all true, sounds like an impossible standard, right? Well, just because the standard is impossible for humans doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.
But that's impossible!
True, but there's Good news!

[Ziggy Stardust]

Now, where that idea begins to break down is with the follow up question of "is there an ultimate truth to the universe?" If so, then anything that doesn't conform to that truth while appearing great and wonderful in our eyes will ultimately be imperfect, and ultimately evil.

The entire point of my post is that we need not appeal to either moral absolutism or complete moral relativism when judging the moral worth of an action, by making use of any of a variety of philosophical tools designed for that task. Your rebuttal to this is essentially just to stick your tongue out at me and say "NOPE! Moral absolutism, blah blah blah, I love Jesus."

Look, I don't particularly care what your personal religious beliefs are; and, in fact, nobody else cares, either, so save the proselytization. Morality is a social construct. Morality is not metaphysical; it is PHYSICAL. In fact, it is a biological construct; a function of evolutionary group selection. Morality is not written into the fabric of the universe the way the laws of physics are; they are, instead, hard-wired into our brains. Several decades of modern psychology and neuroscience have mapped this out for us pretty well; in fact, it is with neuroscience that we are able to probe the inconsistencies and hypocritical aspects of human moral reasoning (primarily in the form of competition between the frontal lobe and amygdala, by means of the prefrontal cortex).

Now, I have encountered many objections to that idea, mainly due to differing ideas on what 'evil' means. To me, evil is imperfection which could be restated as sin. Also, a salient point is that there is no hierarchy of sin. Therefore you are either sinful or you are not. This does not conflict with the traditional definition of the incarnation, ministry, and Resurrection of Christ.

So you believe that not going to church on Sunday is morally equivalent to murder? They are both equally evil? How is that a useful ethical construct for judging the worth of real life situations, as in this thread? Out of curiosity; what denomination are you? I can only figure that you aren't Catholic, because they do have a hierarchy of sin, IIRC.

For example, it is right in the blog founders signature that "It is not immoral for God to kill babies or for one to do so at God's command."
In a universe with an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, that statement is ABSOLUTELY true. Now, according to MY BELIEF, this, while true, is irrelevant because #1 we have free will and thus brought sin into the universe (because before we existed i.e. as conscious beings, how could there be sin? Everything was as he made it, right?) #2 we have the example of Abraham and Isaac, so blood sacrifice is no longer necessary (which was only necessary because of humans anyway) #3 So therefore, the only way that God could either kill babies or order them to be killed NOW, would be for him to crack open heaven and change the rules of the universe on the spot.
#4 to sum up: God's universe, God's rules.

I don't even know what the point of this blathering is, but for the record, if you go by the Bible, God has ordered the killing of babies a number of times: see Hosea 13:16; 1 Samuel 15:3; Psalms 137:8-9; Isaiah 13:15-18; etc. None of these instances involve him changing the rules of the universe on the spot.

And, again, I don't know what the point of the story about you preaching to a confused teenager is supposed to be. For the record, while I am atheist, I think anyone who hears a lecture about psychological egoism and immediately reconfigures their entire personal belief system is misguided and should be more careful about educating themselves. In fact, that argument about "true altruism" is just nonsensical circular logic with no particularly interesting explanatory power about the nature of altruism or morality in general.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In fact, it is a biological construct; a function of evolutionary group selection.

Point of information: Not group selection, but Multi-Level Selection. They are different things.

That is all.

[Metahive]

#4 to sum up: God's universe, God's rules.

This one always cracks me up. If God descended from the skys, handed you a chainsaw and ordered you to slowly torture your entire family to death, would you do so unhesitatingly? And don't give me any of the usual cheap cop-outs, if you proclaim that God alone decides what's morals and rules then there's nothing to stop him from deciding it would be funny to watch you chainsaw your loved ones to pieces.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not to mention that even it isn't even a coherent argument in general. Even say he's right, and there IS a universal moral code promulgated by the Christian God. He himself admits that we don't actually know what this moral code is, and that it is impossible for humans to understand or live up to it anyway. So it's actually a complete red herring what his religious beliefs are, because they have absolutely no reflection on morality. If we have no access to this supposed universal moral structure, then by definition we must use the various human made structures as our "best guess", so to speak. Which immediately brings us back to considering the sort of normative constructs that we were originally discussing. There just isn't any logical reason to choose moral absolutist or universalist stances, even given his strong religious beliefs. It's completely irrelevant that there is a universal moral code if we will never, ever know what it is, anyway.

[Metahive]

There are religious apoligists, like CS Lewis, who claim that deep down all humans instinctively know what's right and wrong and so any wrongdoing is always comitted with full intent. Yeah, it's why I always laugh when Lewis is touted as a grand champion for christian apologetics.

[K. A. Pital]

There are religious apoligists, like CS Lewis, who claim that deep down all humans instinctively know what's right and wrong and so any wrongdoing is always comitted with full intent. Yeah, it's why I always laugh when Lewis is touted as a grand champion for christian apologetics.

Lewis is touted as a champion because he has a writing talent; his logic is remarkably poor and very typical of all the other dumb religious conservatives.