"No it isn't. The Euthyphro dilemma is "Is the good loved by the gods because it is good, or is it good because it is loved by the gods?". I'm not asking that. I'm asking you what you would do if killing blasphemers is good."

Okay, you got me. It's a slight variation of the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Prove me wrong by actually discussing the topic and refuting the thread's claim rather than going on about a weird version of the Euthyphro Dilemma where it's basically the exact same thing as the Euthyphro Dilemma but you pretend it isn't

It's a slight variation of the Euthyphro Dilemma. — Ram

It has nothing to do with the Euthyphro Dilemma.

What would you do if pre-martial sex is immoral?
What would you do if charity is a moral obligation?
What would you do if watching TV is immoral?
What would you do if killing blasphemers is a moral obligation?

I'm asking you if you will commit to being moral regardless of what the moral facts actually are. It has nothing to do with asking about the relationship between being good and being liked by the gods.

I would happily break the moral rules if I find them distasteful. I wouldn't kill blasphemers even if I had a moral obligation to do so. I would continue to have pre-marital sex even if it's immoral. What about you?

Prove me wrong...

I've provided an example of an objective secular morality. Kant's categorical imperative isn't some "arbitrary" framework. It's arrived at by reason, much like logic and maths.

... by actually discussing the topic

This is rich. You refuse to support your own assertion and insist that it's our responsibility to prove you wrong. If you have no intention of arguing in good faith by actually providing an argument then what is it you're doing here?

Ram, Michael is trying to reason with you but you are evading his discourse. It is obvious that you're afraid to answer his questions, and this is dishonest. It's difficult but thinkers have to go in the direction of refutation, it's one of the ways we grow. He has in fact pulled your card. If you're serious and you honestly think you have a strong position then you shouldn't be trying to evade him.

As per my claim about Objective Morality, what you don't understand is that there is nothing in the universe like your definition of Objective Morality. The way you define Objective Morality ends up excluding it from existence. So, by all means, prove that Object Morality exists as you define the term.

:up:

What do I mean by believe in? I don't know, I'm not a dictionary. I'm not webster.

[ ... ]

As for definition of "believe", I don't know, I don't care. — Ram

Neither do I. Won't waste any more of your time, Ram, or my own.

Whether you're Christian, Taoist, Muslim, Hindu, etc.- all these groups believe in an underlying natural law. The only dispute is over the details but the existence of an inherent natural law is a premise that is common to all of them. — Ram

You're onto something here. If all these groups would simply get together and work out their differences - that would be an amazing event that could change the course of world history.

I suggest that instead of engaging in pointless on-line debates you do something to make this happen. Start a GoFundMe to - I would enthusiastically donate to that worthy cause.

Religious morality is not based on objective facts, but on revealed truths, in some cases, or transcendent knowledge in others. — Wayfarer

Aren't revealed truths relative or subjective?

The way the matter is considered in modern culture entails that it is viewed within the frame of it being 'either subjective or objective'. There are 'facts about the world' which are intersubjectively validated and verifiable by any observer, or 'beliefs' which are subjective or socially validated. The larger framework is like this:

"Descartes systematised what Galileo had begun. Taking the measurable world as the paradigm of objective knowledge, he posited a strict ontological division between res extensa—the extended, mechanical substance of nature—and res cogitans—the unextended, thinking substance of the mind. This dualism safeguarded human subjectivity from the reductionism of mechanism, yet it did so at the cost of severing mind from world. Thought was now a private interior realm looking out upon an inert, external nature. The result was a self-conscious spectator of a disenchanted universe: the modern subject—liberated from dogma yet exiled from a cosmos stripped of inherent meaning.'

'Revealed truths' are said to arise from insight into a larger domain which transcends the subject-object division, to put it in modern philosophical terms - not as private psychological states, but as disclosures accessible in principle through shared forms of practice and understanding.

The result was a self-conscious spectator of a disenchanted universe: the modern subject—liberated from dogma yet exiled from a cosmos stripped of inherent meaning. — Wayfarer

That seems to mean that meaning can only be found in religious dogma. That's not true.

'Revealed truths' are said to arise from insight into a larger domain which transcends the subject-object division, to put it in modern philosophical terms - not as private psychological states, but as disclosures accessible in principle through shared forms of practice and understanding. — Wayfarer

The problem with this is that Revealed Truths differ greatly. Or perhaps the revealers access an assortment of 'larger domains'?

That seems to mean that meaning can only be found in religious dogma. — praxis

That is the way that 'Praxis' will invariably respond any arguments of these kinds. That's your 'dogma'. And I know this from very long experience, so you will forgive me if i decline to pursue the argument.

The result was a self-conscious spectator of a disenchanted universe: the modern subject—liberated from dogma yet exiled from a cosmos stripped of inherent meaning.
— Wayfarer

That seems to mean that meaning can only be found in religious dogma — praxis

Or in hermeneutic historical life, or phenomenological intentionality, or poststructural becoming.

Then perhaps you can argue it with Joshs?

I agree with Joshs.

European philosophy will consider these perspectives, which Anglo philosophy barely does.

Analytic (i.e. 'Anglo') philosophy as a historical movement has not done much to provide an alternative to the consolations of religion. This is sometimes made a cause for reproach, and it has led to unfavorable comparisons with the continental tradition of the twentieth century, which did not shirk that task. I believe this is one of the reasons why continental philosophy has been better received by the general public: it is at least trying to provide nourishment for the soul, the job by which philosophy is supposed to earn its keep. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

Existentialism, by its very nature, is prepared to tackle those very questions of contextuality and transcendence and meaning and so on, in a way that most Anglo philosophy doesn't. And it straddles both theistic and emphatically atheistic perspectives, such as Sarte's.

It's not a matter of religion, per se, but notice that as soon as the presumed soveriegnty of objective fact is called into question, it provokes the question 'is this religious dogma'? That says something about the cultural dynamics.

it is at least trying to provide nourishment for the soul, the job by which philosophy is supposed to earn its keep. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

I hope philosophy is not expected to do any such thing. It would be as if a zookeeper had the job of pushing food into a cage when there was no evidence that there was an animal inside.

It's not a matter of religion, per se, but notice that as soon as the presumed soveriegnty of objective fact is called into question, it provokes the question 'is this religious dogma'? That says something about the cultural dynamics. — Wayfarer

I asked about revealed truths being relative or subjective. Then commented on your line about "a disenchanted universe: the modern subject—liberated from dogma yet exiled from a cosmos stripped of inherent meaning."

You didn't respond to my comment that the problem with Revealed Truths is that they differ greatly, and my speculation that perhaps the revealers access an assortment of 'larger domains'.

My interest isn't the sovereignty of objective fact vs the sovereignty of religious dogma or whatever.

It seems to me that revealed truths are relative or subjective.

'Revealed truths' are said to arise from insight into a larger domain which transcends the subject-object division, to put it in modern philosophical terms - not as private psychological states, but as disclosures accessible in principle through shared forms of practice and understanding. — Wayfarer

Okay, looking at it differently, are not shared forms of practice and understanding private psychological states to the community that shares whatever these forms of practice and understanding are?

I think that if it is fair to say that a naturalist-materialist-atheist can posit the existence of tables and chairs meaningfully then they can posit the existence of moral principles meaningfully.

They would lack an account of why exactly the moral principles they posit are true -- lacking any further justification behind them -- but since they also lack an account of how the material universe came to be, this shouldn't in theory be any more of a problem for them.

The reason why they don't is because the real practical upshot of atheism is in order to get rid of Christian sexual morality specifically. The other nine commandments are no big deal but, "Thou shalt not commit adultery" is the dealbreaker for them. Without the desire to get rid of Christian sexual morality, they'd probably fall in line with some minimalistic, shallow, lax approach to Christianity as being the path of least resistance, which is the historical norm in the Western world.

I'm asking you if you will commit to being moral regardless of what the moral facts actually are. — Michael

One's personal moral convictions are always, always opinions about what the objective moral truths are and nothing else. They cannot avoid being so by definition. This question assumes that one's personal moral convictions are somehow about something else when they aren't.

One does not have a perosnal mathematics misaligned with objective truths about mathematics unless one is simply wrong. One's views on mathematics are personal opinions about what the objective truths on mathematics are -- and are not about anything else. Thus, one cannot accept that the objective truth about mathematics are different from one's own peronsal opinions about mathematics without having changed those opinions.

In order words, everyone thinks their own opinions are correct because otherwise, they wouldn't hold those opinions.

The context of my comment was as a response to someone claiming that moral facts must be dictated by some God. I was asking what he would do if his God were to dictate that everyone is morally obligated to kill blasphemers. Would he obey his God?

Religious revealed truths conflict and their moral codes vary accordingly.

For example, some religious traditions morally permit killing and even at times require it under certain conditions. Others treat nonviolence as an absolute or near-absolute moral principle.

I think this suggests that religious revealed truths are subjective, or rather, intersubjective, but I suppose the faithful would simply claim that their truths are truth and all conflicting revelations are false.

For me, it would heavily depend on some very sharp distinctive specifics on what "blasphemer" means in this hypothetical. If "blasphemer" means "Anyone who says false stuff" then getting such a message ostensibly from God would cast doubt upon the authenticity of the message, because as I see it, checking against the natural law (in ethics) is part of the process for authenticating messages from God as genuine or false.

And this actually matters for me more than for other religious people because I'm a Latter Day Saint, which means I believe in continuing revelation. New messages from God in the present day are a very real possibility in my worldview -- just hedged against the possibility of inauthentic messages by strict processes.

The result is a worldview that's actually very open-minded -- but never so open that your brains fall out.

The context of my comment was as a response to someone claiming that moral facts must be dictated by some God. I was asking what he would do if his God were to dictate that everyone is morally obligated to kill blasphemers. Would he obey his God? — Michael

His situation is worse than that. If moral facts are dictated by God, then two things follow:
1) In any universe not created by God, there are no moral facts. In such a universe, it is not morally wrong to rape, torture or murder people. That seems to me not to make sense.
2) If God has the ability to dictate moral facts, then he could have made our universe such that all the natural facts are as they are now, but rape, torture and murder are morally good or right, and feeding the hungry is morally bad or wrong. Again, I don’t think this makes sense.

I think it is much more reasonable to hold that moral facts, if there are any, are entailed by natural facts, so that you cannot have a universe in which there are such things as rape, torture and murder without those things being morally bad or wrong.

I have never really heard an account of God that demonstrates how God is good. I see no good reason to take a theistic morality seriously. Apart from threats of punishment, which amount to a kind of protection racketeering. The problem, of course, is that theistic morality has no stable foundation. Believers can’t seem to agree on anything. So believing in God doesn’t furnish us with a coherent set of moral behaviours, only a series of widely different interpretations about what a particular god may prefer.

Butting in - thanks for your posts. I've not seen you about, so -- Hi! lol

1. I'm unsure what doesn't make sense about that? If God was real, and was the source of moral fact, it would be implicit in that fact that a non-God universe has no moral facts. As it is, I don't believe there are moral facts besides facts about what people want/don't want to see/hear/be around/experience. I am unique in this on the forum apparently, so I take that.
2. He could have. But he didn't. So where's the lack of sense? You're using a counterfactual to reduce th sense-making of a supposed factual?

I think it is much more reasonable to hold that moral facts, if there are any, are entailed by natural facts, so that you cannot have a universe in which there are such things as rape, torture and murder without those things being morally bad or wrong. — Herg

I do not think this makes sense. Natural facts are not moral facts, by definition. Morality exists within human minds, as far as we know, solely. So it is for humans to dictate morals. That's why the invocation of God had been so strong in the past. People can justify their behaviour without having to justify their emotions. I think.

I've not seen you about, so -- Hi! lol — AmadeusD

Thanks for replying to my post. I’ve been on this forum before, but it was a while ago, and I wasn’t here for long.

Natural facts are not moral facts, by definition. — AmadeusD

I’m an ethical naturalist, so I disagree.

I think moral facts are a type of natural fact. I think that it is both a moral and a natural fact that torturing people is morally bad. This is because I think it is a natural fact that pain is intrinsically bad, and therefore it is a natural fact that an action which causes pain is to that extent instrumentally bad, and therefore it is a natural and moral fact that torturing people is morally bad. (One slight caveat: I am assuming that we have free will, and that we therefore have moral responsibility; if we don’t have free will, then no-one is morally to blame for anything. Without free will, torture is still bad, but it isn’t morally bad.)

You would find it hard to convince me that pain is not intrinsically bad. My wife broke her thigh bone a few years ago, and when they were doing scans on her broken leg in the hospital, I had to listen to her screaming every time they moved the leg. I think she would have said the pain was bad, and I think it would be ridiculous to claim that this was just her subjective opinion, or that the badness was just in her mind. Pain is bad because of what pain is like.

This is why I don’t think it makes sense to say that God creates moral facts. The moral fact that torturing people is bad follows from the fact that pain is bad, and pain would be bad in any universe, whether created by God or not, because that is just the nature of pain.

Over to you.

Sure pain is a negative, but it isn't the only or worst negative. So scenarios can be created where pain is relatively positive, compared to a worse negative.

Sure pain is a negative, but it isn't the only or worst negative. — LuckyR

The example I gave involved physical pain, but as I believe is usual in philosophy I was using ‘pain’ to mean either physical or emotional pain (e.g. grief or depression). I think emotional pain, like physical pain, is intrinsically bad. I don’t think one can say that emotional pain is always worse than physical pain, they can both vary in intensity, so sometimes one would be worse and sometimes the other.

Or did you have something else in mind as the worst negative?

So scenarios can be created where pain is relatively positive, compared to a worse negative. — LuckyR

If you have two negative numbers, say minus 2 and minus 4, minus 2 doesn’t become positive just because minus 4 is further into the negative; minus 2 is still negative. So I think it’s a bit misleading to say that pain can be relatively positive — it’s always negative, i.e. bad.

Thanks for replying to my post. — Herg

very welcome :) Nice to see you back, i suppose.

I’m an ethical naturalist, so I disagree. — Herg

Can you give me a 1:1 between a moral, and a natural fact? Bear in mind heavily that simply stating one of each, that you associate in your mind, isn't a respond to this particular query.

I shall show my hand slightly: This appears incoherent to me. They are of a totally different kind of "fact" if there even are any in either camp.

This is because I think it is a natural fact that pain is intrinsically bad — Herg

Can you say why? I know plenty of kinds of pain which are beneficial, or indicia of positive outcomes. This seems to falter here, already (this applies to physical and emotional pain, such as they are different).

Without free will, torture is still bad, but it isn’t morally bad — Herg

However, I can understand this statement IFF I saw a basis for the earlier claims.

The rest of this is a bit difficult to respond to in whole, so forgive the piecemeal nature..

My wife broke her thigh bone a few years ago, and when they were doing scans on her broken leg in the hospital, I had to listen to her screaming every time they moved the leg. — Herg

You are giving me your personal discomfort. Not a reason something is inherently bad.

I think she would have said the pain was bad — Herg

I agree. That doesn't make it intrinsically bad. It means, on that occasion, your wife saw it as bad.

the badness was just in her mind — Herg

Where is it?

Pain is bad because of what pain is like — Herg

That doesn't make sense. You then need to run this same exercise for whatever you decide "pain is like". If you're going to rely on a deeper fact, that also has to be supported in terms of the claim, I think. I'm not quite seeing the depth that could get you there, or more than opinion.

Back to you

If you have two negative numbers, say minus 2 and minus 4, minus 2 doesn’t become positive just because minus 4 is further into the negative; minus 2 is still negative. So I think it’s a bit misleading to say that pain can be relatively positive — it’s always negative, i.e. bad.

Part of the problem in your posting is your use of numerals. Numerals have intrinsic negativity and positivity in relation to an objective constant at zero. The human condition, OTOH as far as subjective interpretations (such as beauty, pleasure, pain etc) exists on personal/individual spectrums without objective constants, thus descriptors such as "negative", or "worse" only have meaning when compared to another event on that spectrum. Thus compared to a particular event, everything on one side of it is relatively positive and on the other side relatively negative, regardless of the intrinsic qualities of that second event.

Can you give me a 1:1 between a moral, and a natural fact? Bear in mind heavily that simply stating one of each, that you associate in your mind, isn't a respond to this particular query. — AmadeusD

I already did this, in a generalised way. I connected the natural fact of (let us say) A’s action T being a torturing of B, to the moral fact of A’s action T being morally bad. I did it by arguing that torturing B is painful for B, that pain is intrinsically bad, that T is therefore instrumentally bad, and that if A is exercising free will when he performs T, then T is morally bad. I am not simply associating the facts in my mind, I have argued that they are connected in fact. By all means attack the connection I have made, but please don’t imply that I haven’t attempted to make one.

I know plenty of kinds of pain which are beneficial, or indicia of positive outcomes. — AmadeusD

My claim is that pain is intrinsically bad. Where pain is beneficial, it is instrumentally good, which does not contradict my claim.

I had to listen to her screaming every time they moved the leg.
— Herg
You are giving me your personal discomfort. Not a reason something is inherently bad. — AmadeusD

I was not giving my discomfort as a reason for something being bad, I was offering the fact that she screamed as evidence that (a) she was in a great deal of pain and (b) she had a strong negative response to the pain, which supports my contention that pain is intrinsically bad.

I think she would have said the pain was bad
— Herg
I agree. That doesn't make it intrinsically bad. It means, on that occasion, your wife saw it as bad. — AmadeusD

But why did she see it as bad? If you don’t think it is because it was intrinsically bad, then what was her reason?