25 Responses to “Morality 3: Of objectivity and oughtness”

1. danny899 Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 5:54 am

   Q is the most morally evil subject in existence. Anyone who does Q, or thinks Q is good, is morally evil. 

2. ExaminedFaith Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 6:52 am

   @riahmatic I’m trying to answer the Euthyphro dilemma on the side of Socrates the Theist.

3. riahmatic Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 7:22 am

   @ExaminedFaith What point are you trying to refute, exactly?

4. Hektor88 Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 7:31 am

   @Cilence13 re DCT: Fair enough, although I have heard WLC make those claims.

   I can see where your coming from, and I think I can concede that there are still problems to work out for all kinds of ethical theories. I am not a philosopher by trade, (although I take great joy in philosophy) so a “real” philosopher could probably give you better answers than I could.
   Good discussion though. Happy new year, and good luck on further philosophical investigations.

5. ExaminedFaith Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 7:59 am

   @Keitaro333 Yes I do.

6. ExaminedFaith Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 8:35 am

   I think there is some confusion here as to what is involved in the doctrine of Creation. To create something means, in part, to give it an independent, objective mode of existence. If God were to create something and then say He hadn’t when He actually had, then God would be wrong. The Creation has an objective existence from God in that sense.

7. unfunperson Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 8:37 am

   @theegyptianrose im not him, but im going to guess he would love if you did that. i know i would.

8. theegyptianrose Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 9:04 am

   can i translate this video into Arabic and mirror it !!!!!!!!!!!

9. Cilence13 Says:
   January 8th, 2012 at 9:53 am

   @Hektor88 FYI: I don’t think our obligation is grounded in God’s punishment. I don’t think any serious DCT would think that either.

   If I were a naturalist I would agree completely with your picture of morality… However, it still seems that all you have shown is that it is prudent to act morally. Now if you want obligation, you need a step which says (X is prudent –> I am obligated to do X).

   The connection is not automatic. There many things which are prudent but not obligatory.

10. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 10:14 am

    @Hektor88 pt 4 So, I can give to reasons not to harm others that do not appeal to God, but simply to my own nature as a person who dislikes being harmed, and who can relate to others who don’t want to be harmed as well.

    Now you can always ask “but what makes that WRONG?” But that’s just like asking “Why?” constantly. I have sketched out a reason not to behave badly towards others that does not appeal to divine authority, but only to our own subjective experiences.

11. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 11:01 am

    @Hektor88 pt 3: Now, even though my preference to avoid harm is subjective, it is one that is shared by most people, and it’s not arbitrary. in short the reason to be moral is because I don’t want to be harmed. I am capable of appreciating reasons not to harm others, namely, that they dislike being harmed as much as I do, and they are capable of harming me back. I can place myself in their shoes, and through my own empathy, i desire to do good to them rather than bad.

12. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 11:39 am

    @Hektor88 pt 2: However, I can then ask “Why should I care about being punished?” or “Why should I prefer heaven over hell?” If the DC theorist’s reasons for being moral ultimately come down to “do it because otherwise God will harm you,” then DCT is also based on subjective preferences: I prefer not to be harmed. Someone without those preferences would not be daunted by the threat of divine (or any) punishment.

13. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    @Cilence13 pt 1: Allow me to try and argue to my conclusion backwards. Even on Divine Command Theory, morals still come down to subjective preferences. If God commands me to do something, why am i obligated to follow his commands? I have heard two particular responses to this: 1) Because “God’s commands” are the definition of “moral obligation” (which i see no reason to accept) and 2) because it would be prudent to do so, since God will reward us for good and punish us for bad deeds.

14. Cilence13 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    @Hektor88 Oh you do?.. Show me how it works.

    I can appreciate reasons not to rape. How does that obligate me not to rape?

    Also, another ice-cream style counterexample: I can appreciate reasons to share my ice-cream. It will make others happy. However, I am obviously not obligated to share my ice-cream… This is an example of an appreciation for reasons to do things which effect others, yet the appreciation does not obligate me to help others.

15. Cilence13 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    @Hektor88 I agree. On a naturalistic worldview, subjective facts play a major role in determining moral obligations. And yes, the judgments are not completely arbitrary: only allow certain types of facts to give rise to “moral obligations.”

    however, the fact that moral “obligations” is not completely arbitrary, does not give them authority. They still boil down to what is better called a “preference” than an “obligation.’

16. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 2:39 pm

    @Cilence13 incidentally, I do think that “appreciating” reasons DOES obligate us to follow them, as long as the reasons are for behavior that affects other people (that’s what sets “why be good to others” apart from “why do something that only affects me?”). Obviously it gets more complex than that, but to my understanding, morality is about reasons for behavior. Reasons can be grounded in fact, and as the video points out, we can have factual reasons to be good.

17. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    @Cilence13 If you’re talking about any sort of moral approach, then I think I see where you’re coming from. Yes, you can always ask “but what makes that WRONG?” or “but why should I care about THAT reason?” Sooner or later, one has to say either “I don’t know” or “This is self-evident.”
    Recall that this video DOES say that all moral judgements are, on some level, subjective. I happen to agree; that doesn’t mean they are opinions or merely arbitrary though.

18. Cilence13 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    @Hektor88 The “reasons we can appreciate” that you point out may lead us to WANT to be moral, but they don’t OBLIGATE us to be moral.. This can be easily seen when we apply your reasoning to ice-cream eating.

    We feel good when we eat it. We will feel better in the long run if we take breaks to enjoy tasty treats every once in a while. Eating it for it’s own sake… However, these facts don’t OBLIGATE us to eat it. I don’t think we’ve found the source of obligation yet (if it exists).

19. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    @Hektor88 *its, sorry.

20. Hektor88 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    @Cilence13 Is there any fact that obligates us to be moral? Yes: the fact that *we can appreciate reasons* to be moral (for example, we feel good when we are moral, we may get more out of it in the long run even if we can’t see that far, being moral for it’s own sake, etc.). What more is needed?

21. Keitaro333 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    @ExaminedFaith Well, you clearly have extremely low standards as to what you consider reasonable.

22. Cilence13 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    Remember me?… A lot of this video was unclear and logically confused. Luckily for you your accent makes you seem smart. Correct me if I’m wrong, but (simply put) you are saying:

    There are many facts (including facts about what we are subjectively feeling). These facts give rise to impressions about what one should or should not do. Some of these impressions we call moral duties.

    However, is there any fact which obligates us to obey moral duties? If not, are we really obligated not to rape?

23. BrandonStanton1992 Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 6:12 pm

    I enjoyed this video, and while I don’t have much to say on the subject of morality that isn’t already established in comments below: I found the subject-matter that was covered in the video to be throughly interesting- I can’t wait for the the fourth part of the series.

24. damntull Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 7:01 pm

    @turbowombat Uh, no – it says “will eat,” not “I command you to eat,” or “I will take over your brains and force you to eat.” You’re reading in what you want to see. This also is a prophecy of the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, written by Ezekiel WHILE HE WAS IN BABYLON, and written to other Jews in exile in Babylon. It IS prophecy. God NEVER commanded cannibalism! As for punishment: Would God be just if he did not punish the wicked?

25. turbowombat Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 7:45 pm

    @damntull I’m far more interested in Ezekiel 5:9-12. “because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary…” this is clearly not prophecy, but punishment.

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