I don’t know everything about the Eurythro dilemma, but my exposure to it says this is the most reasonable and logically satisfying solution – that moral goodness is good, not because God justified it through reason or other methods, but that it could not be otherwise. This is grounding in my view.

it (the system) takes its environment into account, but that is not the same thing as being driven by one’s environment

Getting back to the grounding issue, this says nothing about the grounding of the system *itself* – why the system is good in and of itself. I could be wrong, but the only way for this to occur would be if the system had no possibility of being otherwise. In other words, the reason why its a morally good system is there is no way for it to be a morally bad one. I *think* this is referred to as necessary grounding. Anyway, I don’t see this system as being necessary.

Contrast this with the system of logic. That system is grounded as far as I can tell. The system is logical in and of itself, and can not be otherwise.

Please let me know if that doesn’t work the way it’s advertised.

I guess my confusion if over your objections to arguments for compatibility for A, B, and C then. I referred to Adonais argument for compatibilism because I thought you were making an argument for determinism based on B and C.

Adonais wrote:

As we progress up towards more complex organisms at higher levels of ontological emergence, there is a gradual transition from situation-action machines to “choice-machines.” These are machines of the type IF A THEN B OR C OR D, where the alternative choices B, C and D are selected statistically based on their relative weights, and most importantly: the choice-machine is able to generate its own reasons for whether to bias the selection towards B or C or D, based on the history of the organism and its internal voting system.

This is basically an explanation for how a system for deriving oughts would arise. It is compatible with B, of course, and because it generates its own reasons (it takes its environment into account, but that is not the same thing as being driven by one’s environment).

I understand is-ought to say that we should not justify our behaviors based on what occurs in nature. (Animals kill, therefore I must kill, e.g.) That is not the same thing, however, as saying “Anything derived from nature can have no connection to our behaviors.”

PS. Does anybody else find it almost impossible to remember to type in the anti-spam word before submitting? Man oh man have I had to take out a lot of “/” in my comments…

You are creating the problem yourself by thinking that moral sentiments and moral systems can be “better” (and worse) in an absolute sense, and that there is only one “true” ethic.

Did Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts result in any moral improvement in society? Not on your account of the matter. How about the abolitionists? They didn’t improve a thing. The people advocating for abortion rights and the ones opposed; the gay rights activists and the defenders of traditional marriage, all stand on equal moral ground. The Islamist terrorist sleeper cells, convinced that America should be an Islamist state, are in violation of today’s cultural/moral standards, so they are immoral in our terms, but they’re in approximately the same moral position that Martin Luther King Jr. was in back in the 1950s. So King in the 1950s was as immoral as the Islamist sleeper groups are today, for all we can tell.

. Of course we can strive to construct better ethical systems by practical and pragmatical criteria, that are more successful in enabling the good life for its citizens, but we can do this entirely without such ethics needing to be “better” in any absolute meta-ethical sense.

Define “the good life.” Think of it in terms of sexual relationships, for example. Marriage: is the “good life” one in which two people live with strong, faithful gorwing commitment to each other for life? Or is it one in which the individual’s freedom rules even while married? For the unmarried: is the “good life” one in which persons are free to hook up with a different person every week, or one in which discipline and character strength lead to the ability to enter into a marriage unsullied by memories of dozens of encounters? Is the “good life” one in which marriage is between a man and a womon, or is the “good life” one in which marriage has no gender connotations whatsoever?

I could go on and on. Is the “good life” one in which pepole are strengthened in their relationships, their physical and social health, their contributions to their community, and so on through following Jesus Christ? (Note that I didn’t even mention that this is good in God’s eyees, though I could have; I’ve kept it purely on a human plane.) Or is the “good life” one in which all this is eschewed?

I don’t know how you could answer this without knowing what it is on which your ethical theory is grounded.

Tony, you asked,

Can you please write a very brief explanation of why the three things in your list are incompatible?

I thought I had. Was it too brief?

If you can find me a moral relativist making the claim that a legal system is the standard by which everything should be measured, let alone that said legal system is perfect, then maybe I’d understand your point.

Tom,

You wrote:

“Why should I care about the continued survival of the species?” “Because it’s good for the continued survival of the species!” “Well, I don’t care…” and then you’re stuck.

Give me an argument for the oughtness of Christian morals. I have billions of people who would reply, “I don’t care.” Are you stuck? If not, then why am I?

I guess that I don’t understand your appeal to the naturalistic fallacy with regards to incompatibility in your 3 item list. Can you please write a very brief explanation of why the three things in your list are incompatible?

Lastly, can you explain to me what you mean by this sentence?

It [a propoer ground for morals] would do so by reference to some condition of reality that can bear the weight placed upon it.

Sorry to backtrack — I had been meaning to ask for this and some other clarifications in your original post but thing’s just got rolling and I think we all got sidetracked.

Moral relativism’s appeal to the current legal system as the moral ‘ought’ gets my contradiction meter going for some reason. Maybe its because so many people were required to ignore this moral duty, and behave in an immoral manner

Or maybe it’s because you believe in God and moral absolutes.

On the one hand they are immoral, but on the other hand they made it better. But wait! A better moral system means the old system fell short. This can’t be because the old system was the standard by which everthing was to be measured.

Anyone else see this problem or is it just me?

You are creating the problem yourself by thinking that moral sentiments and moral systems can be “better” (and worse) in an absolute sense, and that there is only one “true” ethic. This is a cognitive illusion.

Long before Christianity, Protagoras regarded man as the measure of all things. But the times they are a-changing, and man and the measure of man will change along with it. Look into history, and look around the world: there is no doubt whatsoever about the fact that moral relativism is de facto how morality is played out in human societies, over the eons, across the globe. You will judge anyone you meet by the moral standards of your Christian belief, and a clansman of an amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe will judge you by the norms of his experience and community.

You have a theory that there is an absolute standard for right and wrong, and that there is a fixed ethic that is the ultimate ethic for live a good (Christian) life. Another theory based on empirical observation says that we don’t need any such objective basis in order to construct ethical societies. Of course we can strive to construct better ethical systems by practical and pragmatical criteria, that are more successful in enabling the good life for its citizens, but we can do this entirely without such ethics needing to be “better” in any absolute meta-ethical sense.

If you want to be fair and intellectually honest in your discourse you should read the longer explanation (On Moral Grounds), rather than addressing statements made in response to infantile bickering at a conference of straw men.

On the one hand they are immoral, but on the other hand they made it better. But wait! A better moral system means the old system fell short. This can’t be because the old system was the standard by which everthing was to be measured.

Anyone else see this problem or is it just me?

For example, you suggest the continued survival of the species would be persuasive. But is the continued survival of the species a good? If so (and I think it is) what kind of good is it? It’s a moral good, I think. There are people out there who don’t care about it at all, however. “Why should I care about the continued survival of the species?” “Because it’s good for the continued survival of the species!” “Well, I don’t care…” and then you’re stuck.

What about “if I don’t comply I’ll get killed”? It’s not “a crude but working example of a moral ought” at all. It’s a personal preservation/power game. Are you really going to say personal preservation and power should rule the way persons deal with each other? It’s been tried, and the results have not been pretty.

2. Yes, for purposes of argument, I would be most willing to consider the implications if B is true. I’m asking you to treat it that way and show how it could work.

3. The naturalistic fallacy to which I’m referring is the is/ought problem. The compatibilism issue is irrelevant, as I’ve already said above.

You asked Adonais how can these all coexist?

A. Moral oughts
B. Philosophical naturalism as a true description of reality
C. The naturalistic fallacy

My questions back to you are:

1. Would you accept any explanation for a moral ought that isn’t the same as “because God says so?” Because if you would, there are plenty of reasons to obey a moral ought. I gave one as “…to ensure compliance in the cooperation that necessitates the continued survival of ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.” An even easier one would be “If I do obey I shall survive, and if I don’t obey society will kill me,” which is a crude but working example of a moral ought. (If you won’t accept something like that as a justification for a moral ought then I don’t think further discussion on this topic is going to get out of the gate no matter how much running around we do.)
2. Are you willing to accept, for purposes of argument, that B above might be true?
3. By the naturalistic fallacy do you mean the fallacy argued by Moore (which appears to present the same challenge to a supernatural or metaphysical explanation of good as it would for a natural one), or the is-ought fallacy? Because if it’s the latter, then I think that Adonais’ earlier arguments (you said you read them and owed Adonais a reply) for compatibilism take care of that problem as well.

Tom:

You still haven’t answered the question, though. What if the person in my question looks at what you have to say and says, “well, then, so what? Who says I’m wrong, and where do they get that from?”

This has certainly been answered, on several occasions. Moral relativism says that they both simply have to follow the law of their society, whether this be a modern human democracy or a chimpanzee autocracy.

Let’s highlight just a few words here: “Moral relativism says they have to follow….” I don’t think I’m violating the context at all if I suggest that this sounds like an oxymoron.

This was presented as an answer to the question (summarized here), “what do you say to the person who disagrees with the culture’s morals?” And the suggested answer is: “If you don’t agree, then moral relativism says you simply have to follow the law of our society.”

Something there smells a little non-relativist to me. You allow, of course, for the possibility that the person disagrees:

They may privately entertain whatever fancy notions of absolute wrongness or rightness as they like, but if such notions cause them to go against the law, the justice system will inform them of this, and perhaps they’ll drop their notions of philosophical purity and absolute rightness in favor of social acceptance and a good life.

What about the person who privately entertains no notions, “fancy” or otherwise, about absolute rightness or wrongness, but still disagrees with the culture’s morality? What about the person, for example, who thinks it’s just fine to rape little girls, because he wants to and not because he thinks in terms of absolutes? (I find it almost odd that you thought my question referred to absolutists, when all I referred to was someone who does not think “moral value or duty D applies to me.”)

What you have to offer that person is “the justice system” as a force that may persuade him to change his ways. It’s the application of societal power upon the person. I have very strong reservations against considering force and power as an answer to moral disagreements—unless said power is constrained by something higher. HIstory shows what happens otherwise.

There is no contradiction between these in moral relativism. You’re presenting a false dilemma. Even you appear to forget the original question of your thread, whether morality really needs to be grounded in God. The naturalistic explanatory framework shows that it does not.

By “these” I assume your are referring to my question how these can all exist:

A. Moral oughts
B. Philosophical naturalism as a true description of reality
C. The naturalistic fallacy

You’ve presented quite an argument in response. (Did I miss one earlier?) You have explained that they are not contradictory. Thanks.

It would be rather interesting, however, to hear just how the naturalistic explanatory framework shows they are not. If I missed an earlier answer—which is quite possible, given the kind of week this has been—maybe you would be kind enough to point me toward the answer you gave.

Tom:You still haven’t answered the question, though. What if the person in my question looks at what you have to say and says, “well, then, so what? Who says I’m wrong, and where do they get that from?”


Adonias:
. This has certainly been answered, on several occasions. Moral relativism says that they both simply have to follow the law of their society, whether this be a modern human democracy or a chimpanzee autocracy. They may privately entertain whatever fancy notions of absolute wrongness or rightness as they like, but if such notions cause them to go against the law, the justice system will inform them of this, and perhaps they’ll drop their notions of philosophical purity and absolute rightness in favor of social acceptance and a good life.

This doesn’t answer the question at all. Sure, society has laws,rules, norms, expectations, etc., but the question, directly above was “who says I’m wrong and where do they get that from?”
Notice as well, at the risk of misrepresentation, that “morality” has now been reduced to “obeying laws”. What about disobeying laws when no one is watching?



Adonais says to Tom:


I think you have lost all semblance of objectivity.

We all have to guard against our loss of objectivity. Anyone who says Tom has lost all semblance of objectivity not the least.

A:

If he [Charlie] showed any signs of understanding the argument I wouldn’t mind staying in the debate, but all he’s doing lately is to keep asking redundant, irrelevant or misguided questions, which suggests he hasn’t understood the issue at all.

The questions are perfectly valid challenges and they are unanswered.


Look at his latest reply, he says: 
When you say “sometimes this…” I want to know “well when” and “to what effect”.

Even after my explanation he does not understand that “when” is only a relevant question if there is a law behind it, which I never suggested, and “to what effect” has nothing to do with the reason that I brought up the issue in the first place.

False.
First, let’s explore the line of “misrepresentations”:

Charlie:So we have an argument that behaviours may be evolved and inherited, but nothing about oughts - yet.
Adonais: :You’re not seeing the issue clearly if you’re trying to seal off oughts from behavior or vice versa; sometimes they go hand in hand.
…
if we consult evolutionary psychology we find that much behavior and some moral sentiment is to some extent innate, and to controlling it requires an understanding of it, not ignoring it. Some of that innate behavior may include behaviors that you today consider to be an “ought” although this concept emerged long after the behavior, or the “instinct.” “Thou shalt not kill (another member of your clan)” is an ought, but one that may have deep evolutionary roots. Rather than forcefully trying to separate is and ought for reasons of philosophical purity you should ponder what the connection between them might be.
C:Perhaps oughts and behaviours go hand in hand but you have to demonstrate that.
There is no ought in the behaviour of a storm cloud.

Is there an ought in a lion’s felling of a wildebeest?

Ought a monkey steal a neighbor’s baby or ought it refrain?
At what point do oughts and behaviours start to go hand in hand?
A:
Look at what you did here. I made a statement that oughts and behavior can *sometimes* be closely related by an evolutionary inclusive fitness advantage that in modern times has turned into a moral sentiment that is not just innate, but also formalized in moral code. This was merely an observational inference, not a statement about a law. First you ditch the “sometimes” qualifier (has this happened before?) and then ask “At what point do oughts and behaviours start to go hand in hand?” Which of course is a straw man without the qualifier, and furthermore it makes the assumption that there is an underlying principle or driving force that would make this happen so that I could give an answer to your question. But I never claimed that there must be any such law, so of course I can not answer your question, which is a straw man.
C:
I’m sorry you see these quests for clarification as misrepresentations. When you say “sometimes this…” I want to know “well when” and “to what effect”. If it is not part of your argument or evidence, and is merely an observational inference then that is good to know. It is not erecting a strawman to question this and find out what it is saying, if anything about the issue at hand – grounding morality.
I realize you are being non-commital when you say “some” and “may”. But by referencing what sometimes may happen you are not addressing morality.
I don’t think I’ve been unfair, misrepresentative or the least bit unclear about my interpretation of Tom’s question or how I don’t think your answers are approaching it.

A:
Even after my explanation he does not understand that “when” is only a relevant question if there is a law behind it, which I never suggested, and “to what effect” has nothing to do with the reason that I brought up the issue in the first place. Which was of course to point out that when separating behavior from ethics and oughts, as we often like to do, this is sometimes inconsistent with reality, when a moral sentiment, an ethical idea and an innate behavioral pattern can sometimes have a common origin and only represent different aspects of the same trait. If they have such common origins, you run the risk of deceiving yourself if you choose to philosophize about the ethic or “oughtness” disconnected from the moral sense or behavior itself. So he took my statement off on a tangent and started to (and continue to!) attack issues that are completely irrelevant.

Who said there had to be a law and why do we need to accept your completely unfounded assertion that to ask “when” requires that there be a law?
You said that sometimes behaviours and oughts go hand in hand. You have since added that there is no principle or law to describe when this happens – or at least that you don’t claim that there is. Fine, use empiricism. Show when it happened. Or show that it happened.
You repeat that sometimes oughts and behaviours are closely innately connected. When are they? In which cases? which oughts and which behaviours? Where are they? What oughts have ever been seen or found to be evolved? You say its an “observational inference” so describe the observation.
You say, and repeat:

Which of course is a straw man without the qualifier, and furthermore it makes the assumption that there is an underlying principle or driving force that would make this happen so that I could give an answer to your question.

How does asking when and where this connection has been made and how it has been observed say anything whatsoever about this alleged assumption of a law or principle?
Further:

sometimes inconsistent with reality, when a moral sentiment, an ethical idea and an innate behavioral pattern can sometimes have a common origin and only represent different aspects of the same trait.

Sometimes implies a “when”. When has an ethical idea ever been shown to have a common origin with a behaviour? If they are different aspects of the same trait show which trait and ethical idea you are talking about and show how they have been observed to have had the same origin. How do you determine that they “can” if there is no principle, no law and no observation to support this?

. 


A: And look here: 

C: how does it happen and when does it become normative. It asks for and assumes no driving force or underlying principle – it asks for grounding.


A: Where the hades did I say that it was a normative process??? Nowhere.

How can you discuss morality and oughts, even if they are innate and inherited without talking about “normativity”? I didn’t mean to say that the process of linking oughts to behaviours was normative – what would that even mean? I asked how a behaviour becomes normative – how does it happen that a behavour becomes linked to an ought? You said the instinctive behaviour later becomes an ought – I asked how the instinctive behaviour becomes normative. What does it matter if you used the word “normative”? That is plainly what we are talking about when we talk about oughts, and in Tony’s formulation, “prescription”.
.

nor·ma·tive  (nôrm-tv)
. adj.
. Of, relating to, or prescribing a norm or standard:
. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/normative
normative
In general, normative – pertaining to a norm – has two related meanings: (1) a prescriptive meaning (for example, the rules specified in a standard or guideline), and (2) a descriptive meaning (for example, the median salary range in an particular occupation).
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci214069,00.html

If you aren’t talking about oughts and prescriptions then you aren’t talking about morality. But of course you are, because you said not only the behaviours, but the oughts, are inherited, that sometimes they go hand in hand, and that you can’t always separate them. It’s not misrepresentative to use the actual words that apply to the argument.
.
.

A: This is how Charlie perpetuates his debates, by continually inventing positions for his opponent and attack straw men. I have a pretty good idea why he seems so incapable of accessing the naturalistic explanation without distorting it:

C: Not at all. I have shown in argument why it has to be beyond these in order to be grounded.
There is absolutely nothing compelling in the arguments I’ve read in these past several threads that shows that morality can be, or actually is, grounded without God.


A: And yet the topic of this thread is whether morality NEEDS to be grounded (in God or otherwise). Charlie does not even consider the question, he knows already that the answer is Yes because God says so.

That’s not what that says, is it?



In other words, whatever I don’t understand, God is the explanation for it, and thereby I understand. After spending thousands of words on inventing straw men against naturalism, the argument on your side is simply “God explains it all.”

Not at all. There are arguments for each of the things I have in mind: starting here with morality, moving to the question of why is there something rather than nothing, to the fine-tuning argument, to the argument from reason, to the argument from abstract objects, to the intelligibility of the universe, the problem of consciousness, the problem of free will, etc., etc.. This can not be waved away as God of the Gaps reasoning, nor do any of these stand without solid arguments. In fact, as I said, God is the best conclusion of all these problems whereas naturalism has a separate, ad hoc answer for each.

And regarding the material that Tony and I have been presenting here Charlie calls is “unsatisfying ad hoc answers from naturalism.” Unsatisfying to Charlie I’m sure, but there’s absolutely nothing ad hoc about it.

Kin selection, for instance, is exactly proposed to deal with the very problem of altruism. It is not an inference from data nor a logical extension of evolutionary theory, but a band-aid to try to explain what is obvious.

Suggesting that God has impregnated us with absolute notions of right and wrong based on an unsupported idea that we must possess such absolute standards, that is ad hoc.

We do not have absolute notions of right and wrong, we have notions of absolute right and wrong. 


I think you have lost all semblance of objectivity. I think I have been more than forthcoming in presenting information, arguments, references and other material, and to correct Charlie on his many misunderstanding or misconstructions. But there’s a limit also to my patience and forbearance. I strongly disagree with your assessment that Charlie has understood the argument and is merely skeptical of it. If he showed any signs of understanding the argument I wouldn’t mind staying in the debate, but all he’s doing lately is to keep asking redundant, irrelevant or misguided questions, which suggests he hasn’t understood the issue at all. I have no inclination to sustain a discussion under such conditions.

Look at his latest reply, he says:

When you say “sometimes this…” I want to know “well when” and “to what effect”.

Even after my explanation he does not understand that “when” is only a relevant question if there is a law behind it, which I never suggested, and “to what effect” has nothing to do with the reason that I brought up the issue in the first place. Which was of course to point out that when separating behavior from ethics and oughts, as we often like to do, this is sometimes inconsistent with reality, when a moral sentiment, an ethical idea and an innate behavioral pattern can sometimes have a common origin and only represent different aspects of the same trait. If they have such common origins, you run the risk of deceiving yourself if you choose to philosophize about the ethic or “oughtness” disconnected from the moral sense or behavior itself. So he took my statement off on a tangent and started to (and continue to!) attack issues that are completely irrelevant.

And look here:

how does it happen and when does it become normative. It asks for and assumes no driving force or underlying principle – it asks for grounding.

Where the hades did I say that it was a normative process??? Nowhere. This is how Charlie perpetuates his debates, by continually inventing positions for his opponent and attack straw men. I have a pretty good idea why he seems so incapable of accessing the naturalistic explanation without distorting it:

Not at all. I have shown in argument why it has to be beyond these in order to be grounded.

There is absolutely nothing compelling in the arguments I’ve read in these past several threads that shows that morality can be, or actually is, grounded without God.

And yet the topic of this thread is whether morality NEEDS to be grounded (in God or otherwise). Charlie does not even consider the question, he knows already that the answer is Yes because God says so. Unsurprisingly, with such a preconceived notion he can not engage in a serious discussion of the naturalistic argument.

God provides the best answer not only to this question, but to a myriad of others. God is the single unifying answer to questions that each spin-off their own unsatisfying ad hoc answers from naturalism.

In other words, whatever I don’t understand, God is the explanation for it, and thereby I understand. After spending thousands of words on inventing straw men against naturalism, the argument on your side is simply “God explains it all.” This is not an explanation, nor an answer that settles any interesting debate. This is your preferred reality that you hope will turn out to be true. It’s not even an argument, and it offers no understanding whatsoever. All this does is to replace one unknown by a different and vastly more mysterious unknown. By no stretch of the imagination can this be considered “explaining” or providing “understanding.”

And regarding the material that Tony and I have been presenting here Charlie calls is “unsatisfying ad hoc answers from naturalism.” Unsatisfying to Charlie I’m sure, but there’s absolutely nothing ad hoc about it. It is a perfectly consistent naturalistic explanatory framework based on a consilience of scientific knowledge, including anthropology, archeology, ethology, biology, genetics, psychology, neuroscience, mathematics and so on.

Suggesting that God has impregnated us with absolute notions of right and wrong based on an unsupported idea that we must possess such absolute standards, that is ad hoc.

I have nothing more to say on this, my position was made clear here: On Moral Grounds.

You still haven’t answered the question, though. What if the person in my question looks at what you have to say and says, “well, then, so what? Who says I’m wrong, and where do they get that from?”

This has certainly been answered, on several occasions. Moral relativism says that they both simply have to follow the law of their society, whether this be a modern human democracy or a chimpanzee autocracy. They may privately entertain whatever fancy notions of absolute wrongness or rightness as they like, but if such notions cause them to go against the law, the justice system will inform them of this, and perhaps they’ll drop their notions of philosophical purity and absolute rightness in favor of social acceptance and a good life.

None of your answers have got us there yet. Nor have they answered my other short question:

There is no contradiction between these in moral relativism. You’re presenting a false dilemma. Even you appear to forget the original question of your thread, whether morality really needs to be grounded in God. The naturalistic explanatory framework shows that it does not.

You are exasperated at Charlie’s not “getting it;” the continual need to repeat your position. It’s not that he doesn’t understand, it’s that he doesn’t think you’ve succeeded in justifying your position.

Simply and succinctly put, you have not yet answered this:

An answer to the question, “I don’t believe D moral duty or value applies to me, and I want you to tell me why I should. You might have some instrumental or pragmatic reasons for me to practice D, or you may tell me D is ‘what we customarily do in our culture,’ but I don’t know why D should be considered good in itself, or why I should take it on as a value or duty of my own.”
A proper ground for morals would be something that, if true and if understood by the subject (the questioner, in this case) to be true, would provide sufficient reason for the subject to change his or her mind about the goodness of the behavior, value, or duty in question. It would explain how said behavior, value or duty actually is good in itself; not merely instrumental, pragmatic, or customary.
It would do so by reference to some condition of reality that can bear the weight placed upon it. For example, if it is suggested that D is good because it contributes to reproductive fitness, then reproductive fitness’s goodness would have to be good in itself (or based on something else that is good in itself).

You’ve explained that we have a moral sense; you’ve explained that our putative evolutionary precursors exhibit precursors to morality; you’ve explained that societies have a group-level moral sense that they apply within their group; you’ve pointed to the innateness of the moral sense.

You still haven’t answered the question, though. What if the person in my question looks at what you have to say and says, “well, then, so what? Who says I’m wrong, and where do they get that from?”

None of your answers have got us there yet. Nor have they answered my other short question:

… how these three can exist in one world:
A. Moral oughts
B. Philosophical naturalism as a true description of reality
C. The naturalistic fallacy

We also asked what difference it makes if you can answer a challenge like that satisfactorily. Here’s my answer: if you can’t tell a guy he’s wrong, then for pete’s sake why do we keep on doing it? But we do. And that signals a huge confusion in the way we understand the world—unless, of course, there really is a grounding for morality.

How about you; can you discuss without misrepresenting everything I say?

i must echo Charlie’s objection to this, a huge distortion that amounts to a personal attack. Your first example of misrepresentation was,

“At what point do oughts and behaviours start to go hand in hand?” Which of course is a straw man without the qualifier, and furthermore it makes the assumption that there is an underlying principle or driving force that would make this happen so that I could give an answer to your question. But I never claimed that there must be any such law, so of course I can not answer your question, which is a straw man.

He asked a question. You object that he left out the qualifier. As I read it, he wasn’t denying the qualifier, he was handing you a courteous, golden invitation to clarify the qualifier. Is that misrepresentation? You object that he ought to have known you couldn’t answer it. Since when is that a misrepresentation? All you had to do was answer with whatever answer you had, like “I don’t have a principle by which I could answer.”

Hi Tony,

I have no problem with the group justifying its imprisonment of an individual who has committed a crime in our society and is behind bars: “We are social creatures who rely on cooperation to survive. Cooperation falls apart, and the group loses its advantage in a dangerous and competitive world, when individuals seek personal advantages that violate the principles of group fairness (basically the golden rule). Because we must punish violations to ensure compliance in the cooperation that necessitates the continued survival of ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren, you are to remain behind bars until the group has determined that you are no longer a threat and that the example of your punishment is a sufficient deterrence.” Or something like that.

This is exactly what I am talking about. You are “punishing” violations. But these violations are violations of biology and the environment’s impact on these. As I’ve asked others, would you “punish” a man for the colour of his skin? Or male-pattern baldness? Or sterility?
This man has done nothing wrong. Neither has the man who, due to his environment and biology, does not reason to the same conclusions as the mass. But yet the mass takes it upon itself to force compliance.
As C.S. Lewis has said, what can be more unjust than catching a person who has done no wrong and imprisoning him, or worse, making him undergo treatment to stop this behaviour which is not wrong?

My rationalization above works well enough, I think, virtually all of the time. But I presume that we agree that it’s worth taking for a logical extension test drive.

Yes, it seems to be at work on the surface, but it must work at its root.

But here I ask this: what difference is an acknowledgement of relative morality as a result of group interest in a changing (and sometime extreme) environment to those who ascribe to an attested well-grounded morality? You don’t have to go too far to find examples of Christians practicing, of necessity, cannibalism. From the sinking of the Essex to soccer players crashing in the Andes, humans (even those with well-grounded moral systems) do what they need to do to survive. I imagine that whether we call our morality well-grounded or admit that it’s relative to our circumstance, the outcome tends toward the same.

Possibly so. But I think not. When morality is grounded it has a corrective for aberrations. As we have discussed, you can look to history if you want to see the over-arching effects of a grounded morality, as opposed to looking at the behaviours of some fallen individuals.

What about my questions about eradicating races but preserving their germ lines?
Is there anything in your system, where the grounding of morality is the preservation of germ lines, that speaks against this?

===

Adonais,

How about you; can you discuss without misrepresenting everything I say?

So far so good.

Look at what you did here. I made a statement that oughts and behavior can *sometimes* be closely related by an evolutionary inclusive fitness advantage that in modern times has turned into a moral sentiment that is not just innate, but also formalized in moral code. This was merely an observational inference, not a statement about a law. First you ditch the “sometimes” qualifier (has this happened before?) and then ask “At what point do oughts and behaviours start to go hand in hand?” Which of course is a straw man without the qualifier, and furthermore it makes the assumption that there is an underlying principle or driving force that would make this happen so that I could give an answer to your question

I’m sorry you see these quests for clarification as misrepresentations. When you say “sometimes this…” I want to know “well when” and “to what effect”. If it is not part of your argument or evidence, and is merely an observational inference then that is good to know. It is not erecting a strawman to question this and find out what it is saying, if anything about the issue at hand – grounding morality.
I realize you are being non-commital when you say “some” and “may”. But by referencing what sometimes may happen you are not addressing morality.
I don’t think I’ve been unfair, misrepresentative or the least bit unclear about my interpretation of Tom’s question or how I don’t think your answers are approaching it.
As I said:

Perhaps oughts and behaviours go hand in hand but you have to demonstrate that.
…
At what point do oughts and behaviours start to go hand in hand?

Let me amend that so as to conform to your concerns:

Perhaps oughts and behaviours sometimes go hand in hand but you have to demonstrate that.
…
At what point do oughts and behaviours start to go hand in hand?

There is no difference and the requirement continues to be the same. No strawman exists nor was any thrashed.

Which of course is a straw man without the qualifier, and furthermore it makes the assumption that there is an underlying principle or driving force that would make this happen so that I could give an answer to your question.

It does no such thing. It asks when has such a thing happened, how does it happen and when does it become normative. It asks for and assumes no driving force or underlying principle – it asks for grounding.

In almost every reply you write to me, you do this kind of re-interpretation of my statements, and it is getting very, very tiresome for me to continually correct you on points that you misconstrue or misrepresent like this.

This process is tiring for everybody and we can all characterize each others’ remarks and efforts.

For cryin out loud… So in one sentence I used the word “control” as meaning constrain, or guide, or instruct – was it really possible to interpret this as control by physical force??? Another straw man.

No strawman, a clarfication pointed out succinctly with the pertinent question as to grounding offset – “How would ethical theory control behaviour?”
I didn’t say anything about a physical force and I asked you specifically what you meant, alluding, via Newton, to the obvious fact that you didn’t refer to a physical force.

I suppose with questions like “When have our ancestors thought in terms of right and wrong” you’re going for the unanswerable question tactic. I have absolutely no idea when, between our single-celled common ancestor and the modern human, thoughts of right and wrong first appeared. That’s in interesting question, but I haven’t the faintest idea. I hope I do not need to explain to you why my ignorance on this is absolutely irrelevant to the question of moral grounding.

Good, this. Amid your cries of “strawman” you answer the question.
So neither archeology, nor paleontology, nor, even, the predictions of evolutionary biology or psychology have shown or found that we inherited our moral sense, that it is innate, or that it is evolved. We have not “found” this. Rather , it is a necessary presupposition of the naturalistic viewpoint. What these fields have found is that some behaviours we consider moral in our species exist in those we consider our closest relatives and, by inference, in our ancestors. They also speculate, and even demonstrate, selective advantages of these behaviours. They even speculate about the motivational aspects of these behaviours, but that is all it is, the problem of consciousness being so intractable in our own species it is hard to justify attributing morality to other species and extinct ancestors.
We simply do not know, and can not know, if they have any sense of ought whatsoever and it is false for one to say that we inherited this sense. You may presume it, but science does not show it.

There you go again, asking questions that are either obvious or which have been given answers many times over. There’s no point in sustaining this.

And yet you can complain about the obviousness of the question without answering it. The answer is, nothing you have pojnted to makes the offender wrong and morality is ungrounded in your presentations.

’m having a hard time understanding how you at this point apparently still don’t know what my answer to questions like this would be. Frankly I think you’re pulling my leg. I can not think of any other explanation than that it is your preconceived notion that one of them must be absolutely right and the other absolutely wrong that you keep asking questions like these, seemingly oblivious to all the arguments and material about moral relativism and biological and cultural evolution that has been presented to you. It sounds impossible, but it almost looks like you have made no progress at all in understanding mine or Tony’s viewpoint since the start of the debate. I’m baffled.

Not only do I think I understand your viewpoint, but I think I’ve argued for it myself in a more convincing fashion in my past.
This practice of adding the word “absolute” to change the point does not provide an out. If morality, oughtness, is to be grounded it has to apply to individuals of different cultures – especially at the point of co-mingling. If it doesn’t, it does not prescribe oughts at all, and is, obviously, not grounded.
Talking about where behaviours come from, and even where a sense of their guides comes from, does not answer, or seek to answer, Tom’s question about grounding.

3) You are discussing them as though we can observe moral sentiments. Do they know right from wrong? Ought they do one thing and not another, in their opinion?

Why don’t you read the de Waal, it’s only three pages. I’m getting tired of repeating myself.

If I have time I might check to see if de Waal claims that primates have moral sentiments , know right from wrong, and choose to do what they know they ought to do. But, in all honesty and without a single straw, I don’t recall you answering this once.

This says it all really. Your rationale for an absolute moral grounding is that you want it to be beyond inheriting and thinking.

Not at all. I have shown in argument why it has to be beyond these in order to be grounded. Not everyone thinks the same way, or comes to the same conclusions, and yet we lock them up anyway. Not everyone has the same parents and the same environments and yet we appeal to concepts like justice.

We have a duty? What is a civil duty and to whom does it apply?

This is….I don’t know what to call it. You know the very obvious answers to these questions, you have an upbringing and an education, your family and community has helped you know what the rules are in your society, which may be different from a society on the other side of the planet. Yet you ask as if you wouldn’t have a clue about these things, as if you suddenly would become morally rudderless, if morality is not found to be grounded in God.

Here we a re closing in on the truth. It IS very obvious. And this is the reason that the naturalistic thinker is so sure of his position and believes it is so self-explanatory. We obviously KNOW that there is right and wrong, and we have a very good sense of what that IS, in most cases and at least generally. But the naturalist can not justify this at its root, as we have seen throughout and is living off the borrowed capital of theism. Yes, we learn codes of conduct from our families, schools, media, courts, peers, etc..
But none of this creates what it is supposed to – hence, Ruse’s appeals to illusion.
It is not that you would not have a clue, or become morally rudderless if morality were not grounded in God, it is that morality does not exist without God. But we seem to think it does exist. This means that either it is grounded in God or it is an illusion.

Look at Charlie’s latest reply to me: what would happen if he applied that level of skepticism to the claims of his own belief system, and required such standards of evidence for God? I suspect neither of you are even capable of attempting it, as this is equally unfamiliar cognitive territory for you.

We think about and answer questions like this everyday. That sense that so many prominent atheists had between the ages of 12-16 that lead them to abandon belief is not foreign to those of us who did not abandon belief, or who came to it later in life. God provides the best answer not only to this question, but to a myriad of others. God is the single unifying answer to questions that each spin-off their own unsatisfying ad hoc answers from naturalism.

But you are right, there is a different standard. When you pose a challenge to the existence of God for my standards all I need is a plausible answer to assuage my concerns. Against the weight of the evidence for God, a defeater only needs be defeated, it does not have to have convincing power to the skeptic.
Against my disbelief in the ability of morality to be grounded without God I need more than what the true naturalistic believer will find sufficiently plausible, I need something that will compel. There is absolutely nothing compelling in the arguments I’ve read in these past several threads that shows that morality can be, or actually is, grounded without God.
And, as per this thread, I contend that it matters and have argued why that is.
I think that the allusions to our obvious beliefs and feelings about morality demonstrate that, if the grounding were to disappear, anyone can see that it matters.

But really, every discussion has its purpose, and demonstrating the existence of God is not the purpose this time. We started out by asking whether it matters if morality is well grounded. My thought–though I didn’t express it at the time–was that it seemed rather odd how you were switching the subject all of a sudden.

On the point you quoted from me (“If, however, there is a God…”) you may have thought I was changing the subject myself. It was intended as parenthetical, though if you thought I was actually changing the subject I can see why you might have thought that.

Let me explain further.

There are two ways one could argue for the importance of morality being grounded. One would be to show where it is grounded, and to demonstrate that this locus is a significant one. Another would be to discuss what happens to morality if it is not grounded. We have been doing the second of those all through this thread.

When I took that parenthetical excursion I was not resorting to the first version of the argument. (I would be happy to go there on another discussion, but it would confuse our purposes here if I did that.) Instead I was pointing out that there is a worldview divide, which seemed to be illustrated in your comment that I quoted, that makes it difficult even to see what we theists are saying—it’s as if it’s in Greek to you. (If you want to say the same back at us theists, and if you can illustrate it, please feel free.) That’s an observation, not an argument, and if we leave it at that it’s fine with me.

See the category “evidences” on this blog. Go to the legacy archive link there in the sidebar and see the same category there. Do that and you’ll find lots of arguing, yet still far less than 1/1000 of 1% of the arguing that you say has never happened.

Yeah come on I suppose I was unclear: I wasn’t referring to Christian apologia in toto, but to what has been presented and argued by the theists in this thread. Has this discussion been characterized by theists arguing for their case? Not really. One might even say, quite the opposite. Tony and I are the ones doing all the hard work of presenting a coherent picture of the evolution of morality with numerous references and scientific results invoked for the argument, while you and Charlie appear to be resting on the laurels of Christian apologia. How convenient.

Don’t you think I could do the same? I could just refer you guys to the sum total of scientific knowledge and achievement, point you to all the instances in history where religion and the Bible has been demonstrably wrong and science had it right, and tell you to read the latest research, and then we don’t need to have any discussion at all!

Speaking of latest research, here’s a new paper by de Waal that I came across today: Giving is self-rewarding for monkeys. Oh and, also a new paper by Nowak in the works (not published yet) relevant to abiogenesis and molecular evolution before the era of biology: Prevolution.

Look at Charlie’s latest reply to me: what would happen if he applied that level of skepticism to the claims of his own belief system, and required such standards of evidence for God? I suspect neither of you are even capable of attempting it, as this is equally unfamiliar cognitive territory for you.

I think Charlie and Steve are well qualified to answer for themselves, so I won’t do them the disservice of trying to speak on their behalf.

But I think that was issued in my direction as well. Do you suggest that I am in unfamiliar cognitive territory when it comes to questioning my own beliefs? Do you realize my beliefs get questioned every day here? Do you realize I do this because I welcome the questions and want to grapple with them?

(Anyone who posts frequently here could say the same. But then I said I wasn’t going to speak for them, didn’t I?)