Thinking Christian

1. SteveK wrote:

   January 22, 2009 at 8:09 pm   Link

   Hi Tom,
   Naturalists split the middle and say there are subjective moral principles that human minds have created for one reason or another. Does this middle ground lead to physicalism being false, as Victor defines it, or does it lead to it being true?

   If physicalism is true then doesn’t it follow that these subjective moral principles are rooted in the objectivity of physicalism – thus they are really objective? I think it does but maybe I’m missing something. If physicalism is false then what, from the naturalist perspective, does that say about the subjective moral principles – if any thing?
2. j. wrote:

   January 22, 2009 at 10:13 pm   Link

   cant we just say that morality is a psychological feature evolved to deal with situations involving other people, and thus usually most people wont buck this intuitive psychology since it makes them feel crappy to do so, and only in extreme cases is an individual willing to say, well forget it, im bucking it all, etc?
3. Eric Peterman wrote:

   January 22, 2009 at 11:04 pm   Link

   j.

   The claim that morality is merely involved intuitive psychology that we obey because to do otherwise makes us feel bad, just doesn’t hold water. The fact is that people often chose to do the morally right thing despite the fact that doing so makes them feel crappy and doing the wrong thing would make them feel good.

   Unfortunately, there are many people who do follow the lower path of intuitive morality, to their own actual moral hurt and that of others.

   Finally, any claims that evolution actually developed morality in this way is smoke and mirrors. There is no ancient historical or fossil or other objective record of such development that can be analyzed scientifically. It’s unprovable conjecture. You can’t get inside the head of a supposed 50,000 year old ancestor to look at how his morality developed.
4. Steve (SBK) wrote:

   January 22, 2009 at 11:15 pm   Link

   SteveK to SteveK,
   I think the problem is that if physicalism is true, there is no objective differentiation between ‘mind’, ‘morality’, and ‘matter’. And so there can be no adjudication between ‘subjective morals’ since they are all equally weighted (if physicalism is true).
   At least, that’s how I see it.
5. j. wrote:

   January 23, 2009 at 7:04 pm   Link

   The fact is that people often chose to do the morally right thing despite the fact that doing so makes them feel crappy and doing the wrong thing would make them feel good.

   wouldnt it make them feel worse to violate their moral principal, which is why they follow it; they give the bad feeling associated with violating their moral principal more importance?

   Unfortunately, there are many people who do follow the lower path of intuitive morality, to their own actual moral hurt and that of others.

   can i get some numbers here, not just anecdote?
   eric,

   There is no ancient historical or fossil or other objective record of such development that can be analyzed scientifically. It’s unprovable conjecture. You can’t get inside the head of a supposed 50,000 year old ancestor to look at how his morality developed.

   cant we, like has been done with language, still get some ideas on how things played, even though there are no “fossils” as you say? can we give a good guess based on the decent amount of info we have to come to some ideas?

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