Six Things Atheism Can Teach Us All About Ethics

How can I be a life-long atheist without it ever affecting my conscience in any way whatsoever?

Irenicus,

I would suggest that you do have access to an answer for the above. However, it comes in a different form than the one in the following quote. When you say a “majority of people….experience at least some burden on their conscience when they do morally wrong things” There you acknowledge a reality that your worldview doesn’t really support. On what basis can your atheism reconcile the burden of conscience (or the existence of that conscience) you experience. I would suggest it can’t but yet, at the same time, you do experience it. Given that, it seems you must be in a state of cognitive dissonance over the existence of a conscience you feel and acknowledge but can’t explain. Wouldn’t it be fair to say that is affecting you?

Irenicus,

First, if all your moral reasoning is, is some evolutionary strategy then it’s really nothing at all. For morality and moral reasoning depends on shared duties and responsibilities. Those duties and obligations either exist because we are part of a shared creation or they’re just a convenient fiction. If all this is to you is some evolutionary hard wiring then for what reason would you or anyone else care about them. They are, in that case, no more important than your personal opinion and bind neither you or anyone else to act on or care about them. Simply, “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” And, let me say, that’s fine with me but then don’t pretend we’re talking about something that matters.

A far as systematic biases, well that and all imperfections in our moral sense is well predicted and understood from a Biblical perspective. Whether religious orientations effect those biases is a nuanced understanding that “studies about these phenomena” are either ill equipped to understand and/or (more likely) subject to the same biases they themselves are trying to understand.

The answer to the question you posed in your first comment stands as I answered it. You are either conflicted to the origin of your burden of conscience or you, as you seem to have done above, have turned it into a meaningless fiction.

Tom,
it seems to me that our actions is individuals are being mixed up with the process that created us.

To illustrate this, I´ll use an example unrelated to morality:
Our bodies rely on molecular oxygen for energy production. After the Great Oxygenation Event (the enrichment of molecular oxygen in our atmosphere 2.3 billion years ago) – an adaptation to use molecular oxygen as final acceptor in the electron transport chain was an excellent strategy. Because oxygen is a highly oxydizing agent (much more so than nitrate or sulfate etc. that is used by anaerobic organisms) and because it was readily available in vast amounts with virtually no competition. So, switching to oxygen was an evolutionary highly successful strategy. But does it therefore make sense to say that we are using an “evolutionary strategy” when we eat and breathe?
It does not. This is just the way we happen to be, its part of our nature, and we are that way *because* of an evolutionary strategy that favored oxygen.
So, again, it seems to me that there is a confusion here between x and the process y that created x – and x and y are not the same thing.
When you say that we are using an evolutionary strategy when we exercise our moral reasoning faculties based on my worldview, it would be like me saying that we are creating humans from clay and ribs when we exercise our moral reasoning faculties based on your worldview – it would be confusing the creation process with the outcome.

Tom,

BillT was drawing a conclusion that he doesn’t believe, because the conclusion was drawn from premises he was trying to disprove. (It’s a form of reductio ad absurdum.)

So no, he doesn’t think our nature is fictional, and you rushed rather rapidly to ridicule him for something he obviously wasn’t saying.

Only he very much did say exactly that because his reductio makes literally no sense what-so-ever without the assumption that our natures are fictional. He said:
“if “moral reasoning is based on our nature as social animals” describes moral reasoning then moral reasoning is a fiction.”
Now, pray tell, how could you possibly say that it would follow that moral reasoning is fiction IF moral reasoning is based in our nature if you did NOT believe that our nature is fictional?

And really, now, please. Just moments after accusing him of bare assertion you write,

It is also a self-refuting assertion given your worldview because you *categorically* state that our nature cannot lead to moral agency, but then that would be still true if our nature would be the result of divine creation, so, you cannot consistently believe that humans are moral agents! In other words, it strongly appears that you did not think this through.

No argument. No nothing. Bare assertion.

Is the meaning of the word “categorically” clear to you? It means:
“without exceptions or conditions; absolute; unqualified and unconditional”
BillT made the statement that our nature cannot lead to moral agency, period, full stop – no qualifications, no exceptions. A “categorical” statement. And if this statement is categorically true, then it logically is true completely independent of whether theism is true or false of if [insert ANY conceivable condition here] is true or false.

Please.
…
It strongly appears that you did not think this through.
…
But the main thing is this: be on guard against committing errors in reasoning that you’ve just accused others of committing. It doesn’t play well here.

You took the words out of my mouth.

Good read! Check this line, though:

“So with that, here are three things atheism can teach us about ethics.”

Change three to six.

Irenicus,

Allow me to start from the beginning with an explanation that covers both aspects of this discussion We both acknowledge that we have a “conscience”. We have this conscience from one of two possible sources. It was either developed through evolution or it was received from God. What are the ramifications of these two possible alternatives.

If it is part of our evolutionary development then it is something we developed to help us procreate more successfully. That’s the basic understanding and purpose of all evolutionary developments. If the only thing this conscience is is a procreation tool then why should it bind me or anyone else to obey it’s strictures.

Let’s look at other quote obvious evolutionary developments and see whether were bound by them in any way. Let’s take a look at numero uno, sex drive. Am I obligated to act on my sex drive. Do I owe a duty to someone to act on my sex drive. Can I choose to ignore it. Am I a bad person if I so choose. No, No, Yes, No. How about our instincts as social creatures. Am I obligated to act on my social nature. Do I owe a duty to someone to act on my social nature. Can I choose to ignore it. Am I a bad person if I so choose. No, No, Yes, No.

So how about our conscience or the morality it creates. If it’s something we developed to aid in successful procreation am I bound by that. Am I obligated to act on my conscience. Do I owe a duty to someone to act on my conscience. Can I choose to ignore it. Am I a bad person if I so choose. No, No, Yes, No. That conscience, under evolution, is just a way to better reproduce and I don’t have to care about that if I don’t want to. And if I don’t that’s ok because evolutionary reproductive strategies aren’t binding on me or anyone else.

However, if we are part of God’s creation then that changes whether we do owe a duty to follow our conscience. If we are part of God’s creation and “made in his image” then we are intrinsically valuable in a was that no creature who is just evolved under metaphysical naturalism. As part of God’s creation we are all linked together metaphysically, spiritually in a deeply human way. We are cut from the same cloth, part of the same fabric. As part of God’s creation we owe duties, have obligations and responsibilities to everyone as we are all part of that same creation and all equally valuable.

Metaphysical naturalism just creates a series of better evolved creatures. They have no real link except their shared evolved existence. It’s just survival of the fittest and whoever can take best advantage of that gets to pass their genes along. Duty, obligation. Meh, not really important in the whole reproductive advantage world unless it helps you pass your genes along and even there you really don’t have to care about that if you don’t want to.

Desktop and I got the edit the last two posts but not #22.

Tom,

Irenicus, just because you don’t see how someone can reach the conclusion they’ve reached, doesn’t mean that their conclusion is therefore an assumption.

Not what I said. I said that his conclusion does not follow and logically *cannot* follow unless you actually do assume that human nature is fictional – and despite my repeated queries as to how you could think of *any* way as to how this conclusion could follow without assuming that human nature is fictional, you could not do so.

I’m done with this conversation. It’s going nowhere.

That is fine by me, I find the topics we talked about very interesting but I absolutely agree that the two of us are apparently unable to make any progress at all in discussing them.

The Non-Theists haven’t shown, by argument, a coherent metaphysical chain of continuity by which Reason herself – given Non-Theism’s elementary properties of reality — perhaps his infamous “singular and seamless continuum of particle (or whatever) in motion” (Debilis) in which all cutting points are necessarily arbitrary rather than ontological — cannot reasonably disagree with him and simply shift his transitory norm’s slice to some other foci, all a matter of definition rather than of ultimate explanatory terminus in one’s own metaphysics.

Similarly, the Non-Theists have not shown that, should Reason do so (cut that chain somewhere else (preference)) she would factually be (given Non-Theism’s constitutional structure of reality) un-reasonable. Indeed, Reason herself in Naturalism hears only the sound of her own voice such that there is no paradigmatic contour of love’s categorical full stop by which Reason may be found, should she contradict said contours, to factually contradict the elementary properties of The- Real and thereby be, factually, un-reasonable. On Theism alone is it the case that Hume was in fact wrong about Reason vis-à-vis such a peculiar categorical imperative:

“Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. ‘Tis not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ‘Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg’d lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than for the latter.” (Treatise of Human Nature 2.3.3.6).

The intellectual honesty of Hume on the obligation of reason as truth-finder to nothing in particular is refreshing — as no moral fact can stand, exist, in and by the mutable and contingent effervescence of “psychic phosphorescence”.

If said effervescence is good then said effervescence is good. The question-begging move of trying to wrench out “this slice” of said effervescence but not this “other slice” of said effervescence is, well, question-begging, and, simply, dishonest.

Or ignorant.

Nothing in Non-Theism’s paradigmatic shape finds reason as truth-finder discovering a path which can be, factually, actually, irreducibly, *un*-reasonable.

Until the Non-Theist can give his ontologically irreducible logical proof of Hume’s error, well, nothing more needs to be said.

Straw men about reward and punishment within the contours of love also fail to merit a response. Love’s fruition within the corridors of Self/Other finds her true felicity, her final good, there in the ceaseless begetting of love’s unicity amid the singular Us. That such constitutes the irreducibly triune is unavoidable.

Irenicus,

The ad hominem attacks aside, you’ve not shown where Hume is in (ontological) error.

Hume’s honesty on the interface of reason with the (ontological) absence of moral facts is refreshing.

Also:

The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is, on these terms, so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures. You can’t except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time”; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so afar you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live. (C.S. Lewis)

As noted, if you can’t give us an irreducible ontology by which Hume is in error, it’s not obvious at all that you’ve anything really to say. Because facts matter and fictions don’t.

From “Present Concerns” by C.S. Lewis:

“Let us suppose that nothing ever has existed or ever will exist except this meaningless play of atoms in space and time: that by a series of hundredth chances it has (regrettably) produced things like ourselves— conscious beings who now know that their own consciousness is an accidental result of the whole meaningless process and is therefore itself meaningless, though to us (alas!) it feels significant. In this situation there are, I think, three things one might do:

[1] You might commit suicide. Nature which has (blindly, accidentally) given me for my torment this consciousness which demands meaning and value in a universe that offers neither, has luckily also given me the means of getting rid of it. I return the unwelcome gift. I will be fooled no longer.

[2] You might decide simply to have as good a time as possible. The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is, on these terms, so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures. You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time” – but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so far you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live.

[3] You may defy the universe. You may say, “Let it be irrational, I am not. Let it be merciless, I will have mercy. By whatever curious chance it has produced me, now that I am here I will live according to human values. I know the universe will win in the end, but what is that to me? I will go down fighting. Amid all this wastefulness I will persevere; amid all this competition, I will make sacrifices. Be damned to the universe!”

I suppose that most of us, in fact, while we remain materialists, adopt a more or less uneasy alternation between the second and the third attitude. And although the third is incomparably the better (it is, for instance, much more likely to “preserve civilization”), both really shipwreck on the same rock. That rock— the disharmony between our own hearts and Nature— is obvious in the second. The third seems to avoid the rock by accepting disharmony from the outset and defying it. But it will not really work. In it, you hold up our own human standards against the idiocy of the universe. That is, we talk as if our own standards were something outside the universe which can be contrasted with it; as if we could judge the universe by some standard borrowed from another source.

But if (as we were supposing) Nature— the space-time-matter system— is the only thing in existence, then of course there can be no other source for our standards. They must, like everything else, be the unintended and meaningless outcome of blind forces. Far from being a light from beyond Nature whereby Nature can be judged, they are only the way in which anthropoids of our species feel when the atoms under own skulls get into certain states— those states being produced by causes quite irrational, unhuman, and non-moral. Thus the very ground on which we defy Nature crumbles under our feet. The standard we are applying is tainted at the source. If our standards are derived from this meaningless universe they must be as meaningless as it.

For most modern people, I think, thoughts of this kind have to be gone through before the opposite view can get a fair hearing. All Naturalism leads us to this in the end— to a quite final and hopeless discord between what our minds claim to be and what they really must be if Naturalism is true. They claim to be spirit; that is, to be reason, perceiving universal intellectual principles and universal moral laws and possessing free will. But if Naturalism is true they must in reality be merely arrangements of atoms in skulls, coming about by irrational causation. We never think a thought because it is true, only because blind Nature forces us to think it. We never do an act because it is right, only because blind Nature forces us to do it. It is when one has faced this preposterous conclusion that one is at last ready to listen to the voice that whispers: “But suppose we really are spirits? Suppose we are not the offspring of Nature…..?”

For, really, the naturalistic conclusion is unbelievable. For one thing, it is only through trusting our own minds that we have come to know Nature herself. If Nature when fully known seems to teach us (that is, if the sciences teach us) that our own minds are chance arrangements of atoms, then there must have been some mistake; for if that were so, then the sciences themselves would be chance arrangements of atoms and we should have no reason for believing in them. There is only one way to avoid this deadlock. We must go back to a much earlier view. We must simply accept it that we are spirits, free and rational beings, at present inhabiting an irrational universe, and must draw the conclusion that we are not derived from it. We are strangers here. We come from somewhere else. Nature is not the only thing that exists……..”

scbrownlhrm,
I see that you are one of those people that do not understand what “ad hominem” even means, but like to accuse others of it anyway. An ad hominem attack is directed at a person instead of an argument that the person introduced, and this personal attack is then fallaciously presented as a rebuttal of the argument. Example:
1. You are stupid and you smell bad, therefore, your argument is invalid.
2. Your comment is full of completely nonsensical sentence constructs like [insert demonstrations here] and overall, more gibberish than anything else – there is no discernible argument or coherent thought in the word salad you typed down, organize your thoughts and try again.
#1 is an ad hominem attack. #2 is not.
And my comment at you falls in the latter category, not the former.

I also see that instead of trying to drop the pretentious act and try to write up something intelligible, you are rather continuing your “WOW, that word looks super-complicated, everyone will think that I´m ever so smart when I randomly string it together with other words that I don´t understand but that look super-duper complicated to me” schtick and spice it up with accusations of dishonesty:

Psychic Phosphorescence:

The question-begging move of trying to wrench out “this slice” of said effervescence but not this “other slice” of said effervescence is, well, question-begging, and, simply, dishonest. Else — teleology emerges. Which becomes, for the Non-Theist, quite painful.

Whereas, the A to Z of the Christian paradigm begins and ends in love’s fruition within the corridors of Self/Other wherein love finds her true felicity, her final good, there in the ceaseless begetting of love’s unicity amid the singular Us. That such constitutes the irreducibly triune is, simply, unavoidable.

It appears that you veraciously believe that your assiduous and orotund assembly of random sesquipedalian fragments into vaguely
sentence-like construct results in pulchritudinous, chrysostomatic and coruscating comments. However, you fail niggardly because verbosity and pretentiousness are antipodal to clarity of thought and expression. And thus, even an eleemosary discernment of your comments finds a lacuna of insight. For the rare occasion where they are intelligible at all, they are also nugatory, while the remainder is inchoate, shambolic, vapid, jejune, soporific and sometimes downright risible. Don´t confuse this reply with animadversion, I´m only pointing out that you are
out of your métier.

Irenicus:

[1] I took your comment that I am employing my lack of education as ad hominem. You *did* say “you….” and “…lack…”. You also linked the word “you” to “pretentious” and that too qualifies as ad hominem. In other words, the referent was me. However, on your advice I’ll look up ad hominem and see just how that unpacks. It doesn’t look good for you on that point, however, given your chosen referent.

[2] As per comment #37 and “Present Concerns” by C.S. Lewis it is apparent, even to teens in youth groups, what constitutes “psychic phosphorescence”. I’m surprised that tripped you up. But, once you get a handle on that quote by Lewis (Present Concerns / #37) then we arrive at this move by you: You seem to want to take “parts” of that, a few feelings over here, and call them “good”, but leave other “parts” of that, a few feelings over there, and call them “bad”. Now, that is begging the question. Also, it forces you to appeal to teleology, which becomes apparent as we move further into any argument which claims that “this part” is “good” and “this part” is “bad”.

[3] Hume looks at reason functioning as our truth-finder and ties it to a lack of moral facts such that there is no such thing as a morally unreasonable goal:

“Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. ‘Tis not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ‘Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg’d lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than for the latter.” (Treatise of Human Nature 2.3.3.6).

You’ve not shown anything here which proves him wrong. That is to say, you’ve not shown us moral facts to which reason, chasing this or that goal, can (by chasing something un-true) become *un*reasonable. So far, on your terms, there is no morally unreasonable act.

[4] You repeat the error of [3] here with Bill T in your comment #40. We are discussing that to which Reason is bound as truth-finder. “Goals” come in too. You’ve not shown that there is any morally unreasonable act nor any morally unreasonable goal which reason can chase after. You seem to equivocate between (on the one hand) reason being obligated to find truth, and chase after truth rather than some other goal and hence doing otherwise with (on the other hand) being either unfree to do otherwise or else based somehow in a motivation of reward or punishment somehow. But none of that has anything to do with morality nor with the Christian basis of morality.

Irenicus,

“……if you say that you could, by an act of will, do everything that your moral faculties tell you to be abhorrent, then you are not “bound” to any morality in any way….

If I do something I find or count as bad or abhorrent, then I am not morally bound? Well, if by abhorrent you mean amoral, then yes.

You are conflating “bound” in a [physical/conditioned reflex/full stop] sense with “bound” in a [moral facts/reasoning/truth finding] sense.

On your terms though you have to do that because the latter does not exist in your paradigm — as per Hume.

You’re also expunging the entire landscape of love from your definition, or at least leaving it all out so far.

People hurt the ones they love. Often. And by choice. They could have done otherwise.

Do you deny this?

Please, no hedges.

And yet love’s interior is constituted of Self/Other is it not? And love’s fruition sums in begetting Unicity does not it? And unicity begotten (which is love’s fruition) constitutes the singularity of Us does it not? Perfect reciprocity. The volitional motions of the will and of love in those three termini all seem unaccounted for in your criteria and terms.

In fact, but for love’s triune geography in all of that — whence any moral claim whatsoever?

It appears that Irenicus may be moving towards a fallacious “As If” where moral truth is concerned. The link might help etc……. FWIW. Its *briefly* touched on in #41, part [4].

scb,

Good link, specifically:

The trouble, from the A-T point of view, is in interpreting evolution and human nature within a naturalist metaphysical framework. For given such a framework, there can be no irreducible teleology in nature, and therefore (as I argued in my opening post) there can be at most only “as if” teleology (as opposed to either “intrinsic” or “derived” teleology). And if it is only “as if” teleology exists (if I can channel Alicia Silverstone in Clueless), then it can be only “as if” natural goodness exists, and thus only “as if” morality exists. Morality can in this case be at most a useful fiction.

scbrownlhrm,

I took your comment that I am employing my lack of education as ad hominem. You *did* say “you….” and “…lack…”. You also linked the word “you” to “pretentious” and that too qualifies as ad hominem. In other words, the referent was me. However, on your advice I’ll look up ad hominem and see just how that unpacks. It doesn’t look good for you on that point, however, given your chosen referent.

Yes, you do indeed lack an education, you have never learned what “ad hominem” means for example. And you are also unteachable, because I already explained to you what your misconception here is – you think that “ad hominem” is a pretentious way to say “you said something about me as a person and it hurt my feelings!!11!”. It is not, and I explained to you what it actually does mean. But without any effect whatsoever because you still have the exact same misconception about what “ad hominem” means as you had before.

[2] As per comment #37 and “Present Concerns” by C.S. Lewis it is apparent, even to teens in youth groups, what constitutes “psychic phosphorescence”. I’m surprised that tripped you up.

So Lewis used an incredibly clumsy metaphor seventy years ago, and you think that magically establishes the metaphor as an English idiom so that you can rip it out of its context and assume the meaning must be clear to your interlocutor? This is exactly as stupid as me responding to you with:
“With regards to your comment, scbrownlhrm, Shaka, when the walls fell.” That sentence would be intelligible to you if you would be a huge Star Trek nerd and remember the TNG episode “Darmok” verbatim. And me assuming that all English speaking people have seen and remember every Star Trek episode and thus understand every Star Trek reference, no matter how obscure, is downright moronic. Exactly as moronic, as you believing that because you´ve read some text with an incredibly clumsy metaphor by CS Lewis means the entire world must have read it.

I see that you are able to write some intelligible sentences as you do in #41, but you almost immediately regress into typing verbose and unbelievably pretentious word salad just a few minutes later in #43:

Do you deny this?

Please, no hedges.

And yet love’s interior is constituted of Self/Other is it not?[1] And love’s fruition sums in begetting Unicity does not it?[2] And unicity begotten (which is love’s fruition) constitutes the singularity of Us does it not?[3] Perfect reciprocity. The volitional motions of the will and of love in those three termini all seem unaccounted for in your criteria and terms.[4]

In fact, but for love’s triune geography in all of that — whence any moral claim whatsoever?[5]

1. Good question! That of course depends on the surface-area-to-volume ratio of love is smaller than five. So if the geometry of love is spherical, then yes, but if it is cubic or tetrahedral, then no.
2. No. The limit as N approaches infinity for the partial sums of love´s fruition converges to the square root of pi.
3. That depends on whether spacetime is quantized or continuous and on whether love is menopausal or still fertile.
4. I disagree because (cα ⋅ p + Βmc^2) ψ equals iℏ δψ/δt, or does it not?
5. If love´s geometry would be triune, then it´s surface-area-to-volume ratio would be 7.21 in three dimensions, but since that is greater than five, it would make love sterile, so I´m afraid that you need to go back to the drawing board.

Tom,

Irenicus, your extensive vocabulary is duly noted, though the website from which I suspect you lifted some of this should have explained to you what “pulchritude” really means. I suppose it might have some secondary or metaphorical application in this context.

pulchritude, noun, (formal or literary) physical beauty.
Examples:
“The manager intimated that what I lacked in voice I made up in pulchritude, though I recall he referred to it as “shape.”
My Actor-Husband
Anonymous
“She thrust it out and strove to find encouragement in its pulchritude.”
The Californians
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
“Whoever would have thought that a funny-sounding word like pulchritude would mean something beautiful?”

It is uncommon (relatively, because using the word itself is incredibly uncommon in contemporary English) but not incorrect to apply it to written words – it would be incorrect to apply it to something non-physical, like your character or actions.

There was animadversion there, and also in your dismissal of other scbrownlhrm’s use of ad hominem in its common informal usage, which is not, I assure you indicative of his not knowing what it means in its original formal sense.

It is not a “common *informal* usage”. The “informal” usage would be “appealing to one’s prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one’s intellect or reason” as opposed to the more formal “attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument”. The way scbrownlhrm used the term wasn´t informal, it was simply wrong. And that he repeated the exact same misconception even after being informed of what the term actually means is to me very much indicative of him not knowing what it means.

He is often verbose, and his writing tends to be rather opaque. Several of us have noted that with him already. To conclude that he is therefore of a risible or wicked character, as you seem to have done, would be going far, far, far, far beyond what that evidence indicates, and would contradict considerable other evidence he’s given us about himself. Do you believe in following evidence?

Indeed I do. And what I see is that scbrownlhrm is in principle able to write intelligible English sentences (as he did for example in #41 right after I mocked him for being incredibly pretentious), but deliberately chooses not to do that because he virtually immediately regressed to writing the same verbose and pretentious word salad that he started with. Is that behaviour “wicked”? Not necessarily – although it would be considered to be trolling by many because he evidently does it on purpose and not because he is just inable to express his thoughts in a coherent and intelligible way. Is that behaviour “risible”? It absolutely is.

That is just my opinion of course but if you disagree, I would very much like to see you translating this:
“And yet love’s interior is constituted of Self/Other is it not? And love’s fruition sums in begetting Unicity does not it? And unicity begotten (which is love’s fruition) constitutes the singularity of Us does it not? Perfect reciprocity. The volitional motions of the will and of love in those three termini all seem unaccounted for in your criteria and terms.
In fact, but for love’s triune geography in all of that — whence any moral claim whatsoever?”
or this:
“Straw men about reward and punishment within the contours of love also fail to merit a response. Love’s fruition within the corridors of Self/Other finds her true felicity, her final good, there in the ceaseless begetting of love’s unicity amid the singular Us. That such constitutes the irreducibly triune is unavoidable.”
or this:
“Psychic Phosphorescence:
The question-begging move of trying to wrench out “this slice” of said effervescence but not this “other slice” of said effervescence is, well, question-begging, and, simply, dishonest. Else — teleology emerges. Which becomes, for the Non-Theist, quite painful.”
– into English. If his writings are indeed just “opaque” rather than being pretentious gibberish, that should be no problem.

Your interactions lately here have not exactly moved debate forward in directions conducive to thinking, which means they haven’t really been the kind of thing this blog is for.

From my vantage point, my responses to BillT have been thoughtful and cordial. My responses to scbrownlhrm were indeed derogatory but if you think that was uncalled for and demonstrates me passing up an opportunity to engage with productive comments that were conducive to thinking, could you then please point out how exactly this:
“And yet love’s interior is constituted of Self/Other is it not? And love’s fruition sums in begetting Unicity does not it? And unicity begotten (which is love’s fruition) constitutes the singularity of Us does it not? Perfect reciprocity. The volitional motions of the will and of love in those three termini all seem unaccounted for in your criteria and terms.”
– “moved the debate forward” and was “conducive to thinking”? Or even just make out a single coherent idea in that word salad?

Tom,

You both used words according to meanings not in the dictionary.

No, we did not. Because I used the actual dictionary definition. Some dictionaries say that it is used especially for people´s (or just women´s) physical beauty (e.g. the Cambridge dictionary) but no one says that it can´t be used for other things and the very first dictionary reference that you find when you Google that word is one that gives specific examples for the word being applied to something other than people:
“She thrust it out and strove to find encouragement in its pulchritude.”
You can use it for everything that can be perceived as being physically beautiful (it would be absolutely in line with the dictionary definition to for example to say that you find this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/f/8/9/f897005615c391e14cd50112cda44665.png “pulchritudinous”), it is only wrong to use it for something that cannot be perceived as being physically beautiful, like a someone´s character or conduct.

As to the informal use of “ad hominem,” you’re just wrong. All you have to do is listen to enough TV debates to know that people use “ad hominem” that way.

Then you presumably also believe that using “literally” as a synonym for “figuratively” is absolutely correct because many people use it that way. I´d rather call it a common misconception.

What it wasn’t, however, was a derisive attack on someone else’s character here.

How about that one:
“If said effervescence is good then said effervescence is good. The question-begging move of trying to wrench out “this slice” of said effervescence but not this “other slice” of said effervescence is, well, question-begging, and, simply, *dishonest*.

Or *ignorant*.” [emphasis added, note that this was scbrownlhrm´s very first comment]

Tom,

Yes you absolutely have addressed that with me. My apologies again here to all.

Irenicus,

Though you chose to leave it unanswered, this question does seem of some importance:

People hurt the ones they love. Often. And by choice. They could have done otherwise. Often placing “Self” above “Other” for trivial, even nonsensical reasons and goals and wants. In the full light of day too we do this – having the insight to know the damage about to ensue on some other life. When we can do otherwise.

Do you deny this?

Please, no hedges.

Can do otherwise means Can do otherwise at the proverbial “Y” in the road.

The “Y” being, of course, the good of (or want/feeling/etc.) the Self (on the one hand) and the good of (or want/feeling/etc.) the Other (on the other hand). Ideally we want both, as both have immutable worth, but of course the problem of privation necessarily excludes the ideal.

The Non-Theist (often, not always) seems to want to take “parts” of his singular ocean of elementary footing beneath all of reality such as, say, the quantum vacuum which is a “sea of energy that underlies all of physical reality” or such as, say, the Non-Theist’s infamous “singular and seamless continuum of particle (or whatever) in motion” (Debilis), and call “some of it” over here “morally good” and call “some of it” over there “morally bad”. He seems to want to take a few irrationally conditioned wants/feelings over here, and call them “good”, but leave other “parts” of it, a few irrationally conditioned wants/feelings over there, and call them “bad”.

Technically, “irrational” infers “bad reasoning” which is not precise since one needs reason before one can have “bad reasoning”. Better for evolution’s mechanism is something like “non-rational”. Well, the point seems obvious. It can be clarified further should one struggle with its veracity.

That is, simply, begging the question. Also, it forces him to appeal to teleology, which becomes apparent as we move further into any argument which claims that “this part” is “good” and “this part” is “bad”. Teleology becomes, for the Non-Theist, quite painful as we force his hand there in those question begging claims. If what C.S. Lewis described as “Psychic Phosphorescence” is the product of evolutionary morality, then irrationally conditioned feelings/wants define the good. The question-begging move of trying to wrench out “this slice” or “this part” of said “psychic effervescence” (irrationally conditioned feelings/wants) but not this “other slice”, not this “other part” of said “psychic effervescence” is one of the following:

[1] Begging the question while well aware that one is doing so, which is dishonest. Or, perhaps, one is merely in a rush and put down something quick and incomplete.

[2] Begging the question and unaware that one is doing so, which is simply a fruit of ignorance (not stupidity).

[3] Begging the question while believing one is actually making a solvent proposition, which is a potentially coherent move should one (successfully) add something to it which (successfully) carries it through.

But that extra “something added” is the very thing this entire discussion is about.

So far, it’s missing.

scbrownlhrm

On Theism alone is it the case that Hume was, when it comes to such a necessary categorical imperative, in fact wrong about Reason

Nope. Feser actually didn´t do anything to show that Hume would be wrong about the role of reason wrt our passions. Even if we´d grant Feser that Aristotelianism is true, his conclusion:
“For the Aristotelian, by contrast, such a person is necessarily irrational. And to the extent his irrational desires are so deep-seated that he doesn’t even feel the attraction of the good or of happiness, he is as objectively disordered or defective an instance of the kind rational animal as a dog with three legs is a disordered or defective instance of its kind, or a tree with sickly, weak roots is a disordered and defective instance of its kind, or an eye covered over with cataracts is a defective or disordered instance of its kind.”
– would only be 50% correct.
Yes, that hypothetical person would be “disordered or defective”, but no, that person would not be “irrational”. “Irrational” would indicate a failure based on reason and / or logic, but the hypothetical person here did not fail in applying reason and / or logic, because his disordered attractions are not the product of applying reason and / or logic, just like the three-legged dog didn´t lose his leg because he failed in applying reason and / or logic.
Feser would only be correct if Aristotelianism is true AND it would be further true that mental disorders / defects are, unlike physical disorders / defects, always a willed decision, the product of a conscious reasoning process. In other words, Feser´s position requires that a person like, say, John Wayne Gacy was not mentally “disordered / defective” due to accident or disease (like the three-legged dog), but that Gacy rather reasoned about what kind of person he wanted to be like, reached the conclusion that the personality of an insane serial killer would be the best choice, and then willed himself into aquiring the necessary mental disorders for that.
But since that is patently false (or are you actually willing to try to defend that position?), Feser is wrong, and Hume is right – even if we´d grant that Aristotelianism is true.

I´m not going to address what you wrote after that in #57 because it is the kind of comment that you have been kindly asked to stop writing and because I cannot address it without making fun of the writing style you yet again chose to adopt.

Irenicus,

Note under [2] this: “….If that is what you are implying…….”

Note the “if”.

scbrownlhrm,

1. You spend 143 words claiming that I am begging the question. But you don´t bother to even just say which question I am allegedly begging. So your charge here is completely vacuous.

2. You say:
“You seem to be saying that (if God exists) a Man’s reason, that a Man’s Truth-Finder, cannot be defective unless he is aware that it is defective.”
– No. That is not what I “seem to be saying” at all. Try quoting my actual words.

3. No, I do not need to re-read Feser. I´ve read what he said about this matter and I explained why he is wrong and Hume is right.

4. You say:
“As per Hume.
You’ve not shown him to be wrong.”
– No, I indeed didn´t. And I have no intentions to do it, because Hume is right on that matter. And you also evidently do not understand what it even IS that Hume pointed out – what Hume says there neither explicitly nor implicitly denies the existence of moral facts, it doesn´t even have anything to do with moral facts and would be true if there are moral facts and just as true if there were no moral facts

“Animals are conscious and emotive” may impress some Non-Theists and some Christians unfamiliar with science or scripture. However, Scripture affirms that, like Man, animals too lack peace and in fact states that things with teeth and things without teeth will one day lie down together – in peace. Such is, well, old news but emotions of peace, fear, and wanting such, and consciousness, and so on, well, it’s all right there in black and white. A little context on A-T’s approach is in Feser’s Animales Are Conscious. In Other News The Sky is Blue essay which opens with this:

“A prominent group of scientists signs a document stating that animals are just as “conscious and aware” as humans are. This is a big deal.” Actually, it is not a big deal, nor in any way news, and the really interesting thing about this story is how completely uninteresting it is. Animals are conscious? Anyone who has ever owned a pet, or been to the zoo, or indeed just knows what an animal *is*, knows that.

Irenicus,

[1] You’re pulling in on teleology with your 50/50 grab, which is why Feser got it right. Are you unaware that your metaphysical means cannot fund what you are borrowing?

[2] You’re conflating [a] moral facts with [b] the ability to see them with [c] culpability. What a mess.

[3] You have to ask about “what evil” because you’re mistaking the ability to see trees with the fact of the existence of real trees. This point again begs the question because you have to justify that the term “disorder” makes any sense given evolutionary means — you’re not justifying that move — you’re just asserting it. You’re just assuming it and building on top of it. What? Evolution has “goals” but it “got them wroing“?

[4] Then you just assert that if one does not feel a certain way one is not “healthy”. Unabashed question begging. You have to justify that the term “healthy/unhealthy” makes any sense given evolutionary means — you’re not justifying that move — you’re just asserting it, you’re just assuming it and building on top of it.

Total circular failure.

Try again.

And leave out your metaphysical borrowing from teleological nuances- – you don’t have the means to fund them — and leave out the conflations, question begging, and circularity.

Let’s try this and just make it easy:

Why is the irrationally conditioned Feeling X (conscience, hunger, itch, want, goal, whatever) healthy? Why is the irrationally conditioned Feeling M Unhealthy?

Post deleted by siteowner for being clearly and unequivocally in violation of the agreement commenters make when they participate in discussions here.

Irenicus,

I called the conflations a mess (not you etc.). See the four items below on why it is *not* irrational or unreasonable for a 1st grader to fail a college exam (so to speak).

By “make it easy” I meant only that in order to cut through all the possible what-ifs and just see if there can be Good/Evil right out of the gate (this is time consuming) we need to just get to “that” (hence the question).

The task we need is for the claim “this feeling/act/part of my nature” is Good/Right/Healthy, and, then, this other part is Immoral/Wrong/Unhealthy to be, not laid out and built on top of, but to be ontologically justified.

And note that even under theism, it still fallacious to say that a person with a disordered mind unreasonably / irrationally chose to have that disordered mind because that person did NOT choose to have this mind anymore than a person who lost a leg in an accident chose to loose his leg.

Christianity does not say that reason is bad or got it wrong (is irrational) because one’s natural faculties are impaired or because one cannot see the factual world (the eyes of intact reason etc. / blurry vision).

It’s not irrational or unreasonable for a 1st grader to fail a college exam.

Four things will clarify that:

Culpability.
Sight.
Facts for sight to see.
Sight’s “proper function” is to “see and chase facts”.

Those are four different things.

That first grader’s reasoning **is** yet *un*-whole because “English 101” (or whatever) and so on actually, factually, exists.

Correct?

There is actually something out there that she is factually missing.

Correct?

There is actually a proper goal out there for her to “chase after” (in a manner of speaking etc.).

Correct?

With moral facts and reason as truth-finder it’s the same four concepts.

The Non-Theist must turn those four concepts inward into the nature of man and justify distinctions which evolution has not made.

We know evolution didn’t make them because of the “bad” / “evil” wants, feelings, goals, acts, passions, and inclinations which evolutionary morality invented, built up, refined, retained, and over eons deeply embedded them in our neurological constitution because they *work*.

If evolution got it all “right” there would be “moral conflict”.

Think about that and human nature.

It *clearly* does not value what *we* value. Now that is an uncanny statement. Even a bizarre statement.

Why?

Because of the basic framework of this thread’s comment #37 and “Present Concerns by C.S. Lewis.

Irenicus,

I’ll give you the last word if you want to comment/clarify any points beyond this.

New Atheist Sam Harris does a good job of getting to near a solid attempt at objective moral values. There are just enough points of incoherence that he fails but the overall “framework” is very informative.

WLC looks at it in his essay, Navigating Sam Harris’ “The Moral Landscape” and also the transcript of their debate are helpful in unpacking some of the content here.

As stated, the last word is yours ~~~

Irenicus,

And just so the meaning of my last paragraph isn’t lost on you. The idea that the existence of God is central to the existence of morality in any sense at all is central to virtually any discussion of the matter. You came to this thread it having “never occurred” to you that this was even a subject to be discussed. Yet, you want us to accept your opinion on a subject you didn’t even know existed before you posted here and that on the basis that it is “utterly irrelevant” to you whether “some or none of us were created by the same God”.

Tom,

I have not removed anything you’ve written except that one comment, which I deleted only because of its scatological language.

So this was all because of the word B#+!$-,t?? You could have just deleted the word instead of removing an *entire* comment… Ah well.

BillT,

Yes, we get that it’s “utterly irrelevant for you (me)”. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s utterly irrelevant.

Indeed it doesn´t. That you cannot argue for it to be so however very much supports it.

That you continue to refuse to acknowledge or even try to understand that a world with a creator God and a world without that God would necessarily create vastly different connectedness between it’s inhabitants is about as basic an understanding as one might have.

To call this uncharitable would be the understatement of the year and I´m not going to dignify it with a response beyond “I´ve addressed this extensively while you regurgitate the same preconceived ideas without addressing my points”.

And the fact that this connectedness between it’s inhabitants would necessarily create different relationships, duties, obligations and responsibilities between them is similarly easy to comprehend. I’ve posted this same explanation three of four times

This is not an “explanation”. This is an “assertion”. And I told you time and again why I reject your assertion, no matter how often you repeat it without any argument to support it.

And from that it pretty inevitably follows that it never occurred to you that any of your faculties are based on anything that transcends your own nature. Correct? Yet, thinkers all over the world, atheist, believing and otherwise have filled libraries with books pondering just this question that somehow “never occurred to you.”

I know. And what I meant by “never occured to me” was that, unlike Ruse apparently, I never experienced the alleged “illusion” that my nature is connected to something transcendent. I´m well aware of other people having different experiences.

The idea that the existence of God is central to the existence of morality in any sense at all is central to virtually any discussion of the matter.

Nope. “God” is a complete non-issue within vast amounts of contemporary moral philosophy. It is central to *you* and theists like you, extrapolating from that to say that it is central, period, even outside our parochial community, is completely irrational. It isn´t central for me, it isn´t even relevant for me, and unless you can present good *arguments* for it indeed being central, I have no intellectual obligation to even just consider it.

You came to this thread it having “never occurred” to you that this was even a subject to be discussed.

So you seriously read my comment to mean that I´m not aware that there are other people with moral views that intrinsically rely on theism? Seriously? Yet again, what I meant was that I disagree with Ruse about this being an “illusion” as if it would be natural to assume that your moral faculties or other aspects of your mind are somehow connected to something transcendent – I never assumed it to be so and to me it was rather always obvious that all my cognitive faculties are grounded within myself and only myself. I´m well aware that other people have different views and made different experiences.

@Irenicus:

What I rather pointed out is that the person Feser talks didn´t irrationally choose to have this disorders anymore than the three-legged dog chose to lose a leg. There was no choice, rational or irrational, involved at all in aquiring those disorders.

And what I pointed out is that “Irrational” is not connoted to the Will — as you keep repeating when you insert expressions like “irrationally choose to have this disorders” or “There was no choice” etc. — but to the Intellect. “Irrational” means “contrary to reason” as is readily apparent from reading say, Hume’s quote. It is contrary to reason, per se irrational, in the AT account, to choose the lesser good, even if the reasons for so preferring are deep-seated, the product of accident or disease or whatever.

And that´s why Feser is wrong and Hume right – this isn´t a matter of the intellect.

This is utterly baffling. First, of course it has to do with the intellect, as Hume himself says:

Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. ‘Tis not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ‘Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg’d lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than for the latter.
— Treatise of Human Nature 2.3.3.6

“Tis not contrary to reason”, or it is not irrational to etc. and etc. And then Feser, commenting on this:

Now, if, contra the Aristotelian, there were no such thing as irreducible teleology immanent to the natural order, then it is hard to see how Hume’s position could be avoided.

Which is after all *the point with the post*. Feser and Parsons agree on a broadly Aristotelean account of Morality. Feser’s argument against Parsons is that he cannot consistently do so because an Aristotelean account of Morality requires a “thick” Aristotelean metaphysics, namely, immanent teleology and essentialism. For if there is no immanent teleology, no objective goods, then Hume’s point comes roaring in. But there are no objective goods in Parson’s account, ergo Hume’s point comes roaring in.

So pray tell, in what sense exactly is Feser wrong and Hume right? Because such conclusion does not follow from anything you have said.

You cannot say that a will is necessarily(!) oriented towards the good while the owner of said will simultaneously experiences NO attraction towards the good what-so-ever – if you did, the phrase “oriented towards” would become void of all meaning. It would be like saying that if you throw a knife into a furnace, the melted remains of the knife are “oriented towards” cutting.

Because Scholastics do not say that. At all. When they say that the Will is necessarily oriented towards the Good they mean that the Will, in choosing something, always and necessarily chooses under the aspect of the Good as the Intellect judges it.

@Irenicus:

I fear at this point we may be talking past each other. So allow me to backtrack a little, and quote from Feser’s linked post again (quote larger than usual to establish as much context as possible):

Now I think this is correct as far as it goes. If someone is simply stubbornly determined to be irrational, we are not likely to reach him by appealing to reason. The question, though, is whether someone who rejects an imperative like Pursue happiness, or any other purportedly categorical imperative – and continues to reject it no matter how hard we try to talk him out of doing so — really is, necessarily being irrational.

From the A-T point of view, the answer is: “Yes, he is per se irrational.” But from the Humean point of view, the answer is: “No, he’s not necessarily irrational; he’s just different from most other people, that’s all.” As Hume famously wrote:

‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. ‘Tis not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ‘Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg’d lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than for the latter. (Treatise of Human Nature 2.3.3.6)

Now, if, contra the Aristotelian, there were no such thing as irreducible teleology immanent to the natural order, then it is hard to see how Hume’s position could be avoided. For in that case nothing would be inherently for anything, would not be of its nature directed toward any particular end. Thus practical reason would not be inherently directed toward the good, so that there would nothing per se contrary to reason in refusing to choose the good. And of course, as I have already argued, nothing would in that case really be good in the first place. It would only be “as if” there were goodness. And since as a matter of statistical fact most people tend to want to pursue their happiness and tend to agree at least in a very general way about what is good and bad, it would be “as if” their practical reason were directed at the good. Hence it would be “as if” there were such a thing as morality. But there wouldn’t really be morality, and if everyone knew that it was merely “as if” there were morality – that morality was at best a useful fiction – then even the pretense of morality couldn’t long survive.

On the other hand, if the Aristotelian is right to hold that natural substances, powers, and processes are inherently directed toward certain ends, and in particular that practical reason is inherently or of its nature directed toward the pursuit of the good, then there would be something contrary to reason in choosing against the good, and thus (given that happiness in the sense of eudaimonia is constitutive of the good for us) something contrary to reason in choosing against one’s own happiness. For the Humean, someone who really at the end of the day doesn’t want the good or his own happiness is just statistically unusual, but that’s all. For the Aristotelian, by contrast, such a person is necessarily irrational. And to the extent his irrational desires are so deep-seated that he doesn’t even feel the attraction of the good or of happiness, he is as objectively disordered or defective an instance of the kind rational animal as a dog with three legs is a disordered or defective instance of its kind, or a tree with sickly, weak roots is a disordered and defective instance of its kind, or an eye covered over with cataracts is a defective or disordered instance of its kind.

So the argument against Parsons is that, while he agrees with a broadly Aristotelean account of morality he cannot consistently do so because he disagrees with the metaphysics and Aristotelean accounts of morality presuppoose Aristotelean metaphysics. In support of this point, Feser enjoins Hume as quoted above. Now pray tell, what exactly is your beef here?

From this:

I can grant you that Aristotelianism is true and hence grant you that it is irrational to choose the lesser good, and Hume *still would be right* – because Hume didn´t talk about the actions you choose to do but rather about what you *desire* to happen, whether you do have a desire to do what is good for example or whether you do not have this desire, and reason is not involved in determining whether you do have that desire or not.

It *seems* to be that Hume’s point is that we do no choose, rationally or not, our desires; we have them, fullstop. If this is your point, then it is *not* inconsistent with Feser’s point in the quoted portion. At all. If you have an inordinate desire, a desire contrary to reason, it is hardly possible to have reasoned yourself to having said desire. But nothing in what Feser says suggests or implies this. This is why Feser explicitly brackets such cases as, e.g. “his irrational desires are so deep-seated that he doesn’t even feel the attraction of the good or of happiness, he is as objectively disordered or defective”. The desires, or attractions, or passions in the Scholastic jargon, themselves may be deep-seated, as opposed to deliverances of the intellect, but they are still, or can be, irrational.

So Feser would not necessarily disagree that the passions we have are not reasoned to (this would have to be qualified though), although he would disagree what we are to make of that, since he, once again in the Scholastic tradition, does not subordinate the intellect to the passions as Hume typically does. But this is neither here nor there, because Feser’s point is a different one. And if Feser is wrong on a point of Humean exegesis (which he is not), it does not mean that the argument he lodges against Parsons is wrong, which is after all the *point* of the post.

You have indeed asserted that but I have seen no argument from you that tries to establish that it is indeed true.

Well, Irenicus, I’ll have to give you credit for being original at least. I describe two totally different realities. One with God and one without. Then I describe the obvious implications of those two realities. Now, that there could be two different realities is certainly possible and that those completely different realities would undoubtedly lead to different implications as far as our who we are is not an “assertion” but a reasoned and obvious implication arising from those two alternate realities. In fact, it’s such an obvious implication from those two different realities that I’m am quite sure I’ve never heard or heard of any thinker from any field of theology or philosophy even attempt to deny this. Now, I get that you don’t have a good reply or way to deal with those implications so I will, at least, applaud your effort in trying to opt out of the discussion before this became obvious.

…because the only morally relevant thing that “connects” us is what we actually ARE, what our natures are and what we have in common, not how we got to be that way .

Which, as I said above, again ignores the fact that “how we got to be that way ” necessarily affects “what we actually ARE, what our natures are and what we have in common”. Even from your own perspective. You claim “what we actually ARE” is a result of our being part of the evolutionary processes. How else, from your perspective, would we have gotten this way. It’s more than a bit self contradictory to claim that what you think we are comes from one reality but try and deny that we could and would be something else if we came from another reality.

@G. Rodrigues

It *seems* to be that Hume’s point is that we do no choose, rationally or not, our desires; we have them, fullstop. If this is your point, then it is *not* inconsistent with Feser’s point in the quoted portion. At all. If you have an inordinate desire, a desire contrary to reason, it is hardly possible to have reasoned yourself to having said desire. But nothing in what Feser says suggests or implies this. This is why Feser explicitly brackets such cases as, e.g. “his irrational desires are so deep-seated that he doesn’t even feel the attraction of the good or of happiness, he is as objectively disordered or defective”. The desires, or attractions, or passions in the Scholastic jargon, themselves may be deep-seated, as opposed to deliverances of the intellect, but they are still, or can be, irrational.

But then you have to redefine what “irrational” means. I thought we agree that “irrational” means “contrary to reason” (that was the definition you provided), but if those desires / attractions / passions are NOT “deliverances of the intellect”, then how could they possibly be “contrary to reason”? How can x be “contrary to reason” (or “in accord with reason”) if x isn´t even the product of reason in the first place?

So Feser would not necessarily disagree that the passions we have are not reasoned to (this would have to be qualified though), although he would disagree what we are to make of that, since he, once again in the Scholastic tradition, does not subordinate the intellect to the passions as Hume typically does. But this is neither here nor there, because Feser’s point is a different one. And if Feser is wrong on a point of Humean exegesis (which he is not), it does not mean that the argument he lodges against Parsons is wrong, which is after all the *point* of the post.

That might well be the point of the post, but it isn´t the point of discussion we had in this thread right here. The point here was whether or not Hume is right that reason is not involved in determining whether or not (for example) you indeed do have an attraction towards “the good” – if you agree that reason does not make that call, then you agree with Hume, that is ALL he meant to say with that quote.

Irenicus,

“To illustrate this, lets assume for the sake of the argument that I am wrong, and we were indeed created by God, but not all of us as people like William Campbell argued:

To start with, as you said this isn’t a “reasonable interpretation of Christianity” so it’s not dependent on me to defend a theory I don’t believe. Second, it’s not valid as a thought experiment because it isn’t based on nor does it follow the basic contours of the discussion. You just can’t make up stuff and it be a valid thought experiment.

But for the sake if closure on it. Campbell’s argument that only some of creation is “Adamic” (if that’s even a thing at all) misses a basic fact. Even given that premise, no matter who God chose as “Adamic” that would have no bearing on the fact that he still created the rest of humanity as well. There would be no difference in their metaphysical connectedness because God still would be the creator of all mankind regardless. Thus, even under this premise, we are not “created differently.” Even if there was such a thing as an “Adamic” status, that would, by his own description, only be a later addition (it coming after the creation of mankind as a whole) to the basic metaphysical makeup we would all necessarily share as part of the same initial creation. Thus, race or any other factor, would have absolutely no bearing on the metaphysical connectedness of humanity.

[And just BTW, Irenicus. This is the kind of tortured illogical thinking that the vilest racists in history have used to justify their racism and heinous treatment of people based on their race .]

And your attempted explanation that followed used the same mistaken pattern of thinking. Your assumption that Bob as a “product of special creation” necessarily means that “there must be morally significant differences between Bob and every other human being because they came to be the way they are through completely different processes.” is an unsupported allegation. If God can create “Bob” who in your own words is “completely indistinguishable from a human that is the product of an evolutionary process ” then he can certainly imbue him with the same metaphysical connectedness. Like above, it’s all still God’s creation.

The basic problem it seems you and Mr. Campbell have is a failure to grasp the scope and meaning of the word omnipotent. If this is God’s creation than this is God’s creation. All of it. Every aspect of that creation that is possible for God to do logically with the power of his omnipotence is under his control. Both you and Mr. Campbell introduce events into God’s creation that you believe he can’t control. For Mr. Campbell it’s “Adamic” status for you Bob the “product of special creation”. But none of that binds God or his creation to the conclusions you insist must be true because of them.

Irenicus,

But then you have to redefine what “irrational” means. I thought we agree that “irrational” means “contrary to reason” (that was the definition you provided), but if those desires / attractions / passions are NOT “deliverances of the intellect”, then how could they possibly be “contrary to reason”? How can x be “contrary to reason” (or “in accord with reason”) if x isn´t even the product of reason in the first place?

I think what is meant by “contrary to reason” in this context is that it is not in accord with what a correctly functioning intellect would present as good.

With the same “metaphysical connectedness” that all the other humans wouldn´t have in the first place because God set up a process that autonomously creates them without him doing anything…

Irenicus,

You asked me to explain, given your and Mr. Campbell’s scenarios, how God could deal with the issues you and he raised that being the Adamic issue and the special creation issue. I did that. Your response was to say “that’s wrong because my imaginary god says so.” Remember, the idea “that all the other humans wouldn’t have (the same “metaphysical connectedness”) in the first place because God set up a process that autonomously creates them without him doing anything…” is a fiction you created for your imaginary god. And moreover, because he’s your imaginary god, what you’re essentially saying is “you’re wrong because I said so.” This is not a checkmate and that’s not how thought experiments work.

Neither did you address the restatement of my central premise at the end of post #92 or my discussion of God’s omnipotence. Those ideas are both central to why your and Mr. Campbell’s scenarios don’t create any issues for the God of theism. Nor do they mitigate the idea of the metaphysical connectedness that would create an objective basis for a morality that we would all share if God created the universe. Again, saying my “imaginary god says that’s not true” does not refute or even address my explanation.

@Irenicus:

I thought we agree that “irrational” means “contrary to reason” (that was the definition you provided), but if those desires / attractions / passions are NOT “deliverances of the intellect”, then how could they possibly be “contrary to reason”?

As Melissa and Tom said. Desires or passions can be irrational in different senses. Desires can be irrational because they are inordinate, e.g. desire for the wrong thing. But that the object of desire is the wrong object for desire is an intellectual judgment therefore the desire can be rightly said contrary to reason. Desires can be irrational because they are disproportionate to their objects. Being disproportionate to their objects is likewise an intellectual judgment, therefore such a desire can rightfully be said to be contrary to reason. Etc. and etc.

The point here was whether or not Hume is right that reason is not involved in determining whether or not (for example) you indeed do have an attraction towards “the good” – if you agree that reason does not make that call, then you agree with Hume, that is ALL he meant to say with that quote.

No, that is not all Hume meant with that quote and it is not how Feser employs him. And when Feser speaks of attraction, as in “he doesn’t even feel the attraction of the good or of happiness”, the attraction here refers to desires or passions in the Scholastic jargon, but his argument revolves around, not desires or passions, but around the Will, that is necessarily oriented to the Good, and the Intellect, in the guise of practical reason, also oriented towards the Good, though in a different but related sense. And if you think Feser is misreading Hume (which he is not), his argument goes through just the same: just splash the Humean label on it and add “whether the historical Hume would agree with it or not”.

Subtext:

From a com-box over in E. Feser’s blog, “DNW” makes the following observation:

Quote:

You stated this,

“Isn’t the problem of justification always going to be a shell game? You can always find where I’m dropping a premise, taking something for granted without arguing for it …..“

I’m not accusing you of “dropping a premise” or taking something for granted without arguing for it. I am accusing you of something worse: deliberate intellectual fraud.

I am accusing you of persistently deploying universal terms which have been rendered entirely problematical on your own account, as if they still meant what they once did in a moral universe populated by natural kinds and furnished with teleologically derived normative standards.

It’s just all too precious.

Now, I understand, as the relative newcomers here might not always, that the nihilist dance routine, and the refrain that it is better to huckster the crowd than to pester about the ultimate, is in fact your operating premise. But, and it’s a big ugly but as they say, if you took your own claim of epistemic humility seriously, you would keep this truth about your method at the forefront, and refuse to engage in pseudo-arguments which are in principle incapable of any kind of resolution because of the built-in problems of equivocation; problems of which you are perfectly aware, and have in fact placed there.

Thus, when you launch off on these rhetorical diversions, one can only conclude that these speech acts of yours are base and cynical attempts to simply exhaust those who don’t quite get the meta-narrative which lies behind and informs and shapes your surface efforts.

What you need to do, in order to be “truly authentic”, is to admit to yourself and to everyone else, why that kind of consistent honesty is so dangerous to those taking your stance; and why, unless relentlessly pressed, you seek to avoid it.

…….By the way, and for what it is worth; I don’t wish to leave the impression that I imagine there is some functional equivalence between the concept of a tautology and a spandrel. I was – probably obviously – implying the prosaic image of a cluster of tautological statements giving an appearance of a meaningful structure or system when stacked and leaned up against each other at various angles … the resultant spaces providing the necessary illusion for pattern projecting subjects to go on to … etc ……

You know, and in adverting to the paragraph two above, there is in fact, something profoundly “metaphysical” in that diversionary, dissembling tactic. Something, as you have I believe yourself admitted as anti-logocentric. Something which at the deepest and most profound level takes deceit, and manipulation, to be at the very heart of a “life strategy”.

It almost reminds me of … well … the paradigm or myth escapes me at the moment. But I am sure it will come to me eventually …

Till then.

End quote.

“…..God set up a process that autonomously creates them without him doing anything…..”

It is possible that God can set up an autonomous process of material which imbues material with that which reduces to the immaterial. But that is impossible. In short that all amounts to this: Man is material, and nothing more, and if we just assume for our thought experiment that God made Man thusly, well then Man comes up the same in Theism as in Materialism.

scb,

And Irenicus can certainly speculate this or present it as a thought experiment. That’s certainly fine. However, he didn’t, to my knowledge, present any argument that would allow him to use that as a established conclusion that would effectively refute my explanations of his “Adamic” and “special creation” scenarios. Agree or did I miss something?

for him to think that he can

Thanks scb.

JAD @ #104. That’s a beautifully written statement that puts a lot of truth in a very few words.

Here is one of the best versions of the moral arguments for the existence of God that I have ever seen or heard. Notice how succinct it is and how much ground Professor Kreeft covers in five minutes.

https://stream.org/believe-good-bad-real-must-also-believe/

There is a seventh thing that atheism teaches us about morality. Any world view that begins WITHOUT an eternally existing transcendent creator and law giver (God) is a morally, spiritually and intellectually bankrupt world view. This is especially apparent with so-called internet atheists who at best appear to be clever in the way they put together words and combine them with ideas they have co-opted from theistic and Christian roots. However, vacuous and counterfeit rhetoric does not equal good reasoning.

This is abundantly clear when we look at the concept universal (and objective) human rights. What are human rights? They are moral obligations writ large. However, I do not see how so-called human rights can be justified from a naturalistic/atheistic perspective. Blind and mindless natural forces which are behind the unintended evolution of life, consciousness and human kind do not have moral obligations. No one has made this clearer than Richard Dawkins who writes:

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

Nevertheless, Dawkins apparently is also a “liberal” who champions democratic freedoms and values which are based on the concept of universal human rights. But how is this even possible based on his world view?

I have an opinion here, but the following quote from David Bently Hart states that opinion more elegantly than I ever could.

“I can honestly say that there are many forms of atheism that I find far more admirable than many forms of Christianity or of religion in general. But atheism that consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness, is as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism. And it is sometimes difficult, frankly, to be perfectly generous in one’s response to the sort of invective currently fashionable among the devoutly undevout, or to the sort of historical misrepresentations it typically involves.”

(From Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies)

Like Hart I think (at least I think this is what he means) that there are honest atheists out there who honestly think through the implications of their world view. While I don’t agree with any atheistic world view, I do respect those who honestly understand the limits of their world view. I cannot do what God cannot do—force someone to freely believe against their will.

However, the pseudo-intellectual “know-it-alls” who troll the internet are not being honest with themselves, let alone anyone else. What is really ironic is when these dishonest trolls show up here and begin pontificating about morality and ethics. Doesn’t morality and ethics begin with basic honesty? How can you be ethical without being honest? And why would you expect anyone else to take you seriously, when they can see right through the shallow and phony facade? That’s why I have stopped interacting with people who are apparently incapable of basic honesty. That is why as I said above @ #117 that “Any world view that begins WITHOUT an eternally existing transcendent creator and law giver (God) is a morally, spiritually and intellectually bankrupt world view.”

And while we’re quoting the far more eloquent and informed, here again is David Bentley Hart on the complete lack of self awareness of modern atheistic thought:

The only really effective antidote to the dreariness of reading the New Atheists, it seems to me, is rereading Nietzsche. How much more immediate and troubling the force of his protest against Christianity seems when compared to theirs, even more than a century after his death. Perhaps his intellectual courage—his willingness to confront the implications of his renunciation of the Christian story of truth and the transcendent good without evasions or retreats—is rather a lot to ask of any other thinker, but it does rather make the atheist chic of today look fairly craven by comparison.

Above all, Nietzsche understood how immense the consequences of the rise of Christianity had been, and how immense the consequences of its decline would be as well, and had the intelligence to know he could not fall back on polite moral certitudes to which he no longer had any right. Just as the Christian revolution created a new sensibility by inverting many of the highest values of the pagan past, so the decline of Christianity, Nietzsche knew, portends another, perhaps equally catastrophic shift in moral and cultural consciousness. His famous fable in The Gay Science of the madman who announces God’s death is anything but a hymn of atheist triumphalism. In fact, the madman despairs of the mere atheists—those who merely do not believe—to whom he addresses his terrible proclamation. In their moral contentment, their ease of conscience, he sees an essential oafishness; they do not dread the death of God because they do not grasp that humanity’s heroic and insane act of repudiation has sponged away the horizon, torn down the heavens, left us with only the uncertain resources of our will with which to combat the infinity of meaninglessness that the universe now threatens to become.

@Tom:

Irenicus, your thought experiment assumes a God no one believes in.

Again, I can only point out that you do not understand the purpose of thought experiments.

Your checkmate is victory, I’ll admit, but it defeats a belief no one holds.

And you also don´t understand what I tried to demonstrate with my thought experiment. It has nothing, literally nothing what-so-ever to do with demonstrating that there is no “God” – it didn´t try to demonstrate that your God doesn´t exist, abd it didn´t try to demonstrate that some other God doesn´t exist.
Once more for emphasis – IT HAD ***NOTHING*** TO DO WITH WHETHER YOUR GOD OR ANY OTHER GOD DOES EXIST OR NOT.

G. Rodrigues

But that the object of desire is the wrong object for desire is an intellectual judgment therefore the desire can be rightly said contrary to reason.

Nope. If you design an object for the purpose of doing x, but some accident (lets say a storm) damages the object and now it is only capable of doing y, then someone could look at it and make the intellectual judgment “that thing should be able to do x, but apparently it has been damaged so that it can only do y” – but you can NOT say that the function of this object is therefore “irrational”. That the object does y instead of x is neither the consequence of rationality, nor of irrationality – it has a non-rational reason. And the same is true for Feser´s hypothetical three-legged dog or a psychopath.

No, that is not all Hume meant with that quote and it is not how Feser employs him.

Actually, that is very much what Hume meant with that quote (again, look up any commentary on Hume – check the entry in the SEP for example).

And when Feser speaks of attraction, as in “he doesn’t even feel the attraction of the good or of happiness”, the attraction here refers to desires or passions in the Scholastic jargon, but his argument revolves around, not desires or passions, but around the Will, that is necessarily oriented to the Good

No, it is not necessarily oriented to the Good, see my last comment:
“If they do say that, this would just be empirically false. All you need to do to show it to be false is to present one person who intellectually understands perfectly well that his actions were morally wrong, yet still experienced no desire whatsoever to refrain from doing them, i.e. whose will was not attracted towards the “good” in any way, shape or form and who thus easily could do things that he knew to be wrong because he had no desire to do what is good. For a person like that, you cannot say that their “will is necessarily(!) oriented towards to good” at all because their will is evidently utterly indifferent towards the good.
See:
“Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care”
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/59.full “

Tom,

Irenicus, you seem to think,it’s our fault no one here understands what you’re trying to say. There’s another, more likely explanation.

It´s not so much about “what I am trying to say” and rather about “what does “thought experiment” mean” – and I didn´t invent that concept.

Your re-worded question to Bill implies a universe that is partly naturalistic/deistic

Not really, it isn´t naturalistic and also not deistic because the God that created it does intervene in it after its creation (by creating some beings that are indistinguishable from those that were created by an evolutionary process).

The answer to your question then is that there is no reason to treat the two parts differently, but not because they are the same. It’s because we can’t perceive the differences. It’s a problem of knowledge, not one of resl moral worth or duties.

Then we´ll modify the thought experiment so that this becomes knowable – assume that the group that was not created by an evolutionary process just pops into existence out of nothing in the presence of witnesses (like a storck bringing a baby only without the storck) – and those babies grow up to become humans that are indistinguishable from us, the only difference is that they were not born like we were but rather just popped into existence as babies.
With that modification, the difference in the creation processes would be knowable and IS known – so tell me how that would entail that the two groups of beings would have different moral duties. Why ought a naturally born human treat one of the specially created ones any differently or vice versa? And what differences would those be exactly?

BTW, your understanding of what omnipotence means is false. Omnipotence is not the power to do anything, it is the power to do anything that power can do. No amount of power can square a circle.

I know. And which square circles or otherwise logically incoherent elements does my thought experiment entail? If you intend to argue that it is a logical *necessity* that everything that happens can only happen because God wills it so, that applies to the human will as well and would thus mean that the human will necessarily is not free in any sense but rather merely an expression of what God willed. In other words, as long as you affirm that humans have libertarian free will, you cannot consistently deny that God is capable of creating things that do stuff without God determining what they will do.

Tom,

How do you come to the conclusion that the appearance of sameness trumps the reality of deep differences?

I don´t. There are no differenceS (plural) and there is not just an “appearance” of similarity. There is just one “difference”. And that “difference” is in the way how both groups got to be the way they are, the process that created them – that´s it.
And, as I keep saying since the beginning of this thread, I claim that this difference does not have any moral implications at all. You can BillT disagree and rather claim that this difference is of paramount moral importance.
And that´s why I came up with this thought experiment where we have two groups of beings, both of which are just like you and me, and the only thing that distinguishes them is the process that created them. I challenged both you and BillT to explain how that difference would lead to different moral duties for group A and B and to explain *why* there would be different moral duties for them. You cannot do so, and demonstrating this – that you cannot point to differences in moral duties and a reason for those differences in a hypothetical situations where such differences should exist IF you are right – was the entire purpose of the thought experiment.

BillT,

No you didn’t. You only think you succeeded in doing this. The only way you “succeeded” though was to place restraints on God

Wrong. I didn´t place any restraints on that hypothetical God at all.

This God that “set up a process that autonomously creates them without him doing anything” is your fiction that takes what you believe is a thought experiment and turns it into nothing but your opinion. You have both asked the question and provided the answer. If you can do that in your premise then I can simply reply by saying that God didn’t “set up a process that autonomously creates them without him doing anything.”

@Tom: you can say what you want but BillT evidently does not understand what a “thought experiment” is – that´s not me considering him “stupid”, that´s just a simple observation.

Which I did. I explained that a metaphysical connectedness would exist among those whose existence depended on the same metaphysical creation. That connectedness would not exist in an evolved, non-metaphysical creation. [To explain further.] You claimed that wasn’t true because “God set up a process that autonomously creates them without him doing anything…” You have no basis (in fact) to impose that condition nor, in a thought experiment, can you constrain my reply by this arbitrary condition. Can’t you see that as I said above, you have both asked the question and provided the answer.

Well, I can explain to you what a thought experiment is and how it can and cannot be interpreted and what logically follows from it and what not, but I cannot understand it for you.
Try to read and understand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment

Tom,

Irenicus, quit trying to school people on thought experiments. Your problem isn’t that we don’t know what they are.

I didn´t talk about you, I talked about BillT. And BillT “criticizes” that “[I] have no basis (in fact) to impose that condition” – and that is a completely ridiculous criticism that someone who understands what a thought experiment is (conceptually) would never make.

Which is it? You have a choice: they both bear God’s image and our argument proceeds from there, or neither bears God’s image and our argument proceeds from there.

I already told you everything you need to know, the only difference is the process that created them, period. Both would have the exact same kind of sentience, they would be both conscious and self-aware, they would both be able to experience the same range of emotions as a consequence of the same effects, they would both have the same desires, they would both have the same kind of moral faculties, they would both have the same reasoning faculties and intuitions, they would both have the same kind of will and so on and so forth ad nauseam – no difference at all beyond the process that created them.
That doesn´t lead to any difference in moral duties, and therefore, your claim that it matters (from a moral perspective) how we got to be the way we are now, is false.

But there’s more. You said the only difference was in “the process that created them.l” That includes an unintentional depersonalization. In the one case it’s not a process that creates them, it’s a Person.

That includes no “depersonalization” at all because the word “process” can both be used for a series of spontaneous events that produce a certain result and for a series of events that involves deliberate personal choices.

Tom,

So let’s try again. In your thought experiment where the two groups of humans are identical in every way, are they bearers of God’s image or not?

I have no idea what “God´s image” even means, and if wikipedia is not completely misleading on that issue, neither does anyone else:
“There have been many interpretations of the idea of God’s image from ancient times until today, and Biblical scholars still have no consensus about the meaning of the term. The remainder of this article focuses on Christian interpretations of the term.

To assert that humans are created in the image of God may mean to recognize some special qualities of human nature which allow God to be made manifest in humans. For humans to have a conscious recognition of having been made in the image of God may mean that they are aware of being that part of the creation through whom God’s plans and purposes best can be expressed and actualized; humans, in this way, can interact creatively with the rest of creation. The moral implications of the doctrine of Imago Dei are apparent in the fact that, if humans are to love God, then humans must love other humans whom God has created (cf. John 13:35), as each is an expression of God. The human likeness to God can also be understood by contrasting it with that which does not image God, i.e., beings who, as far as we know, are without this spiritual self-awareness and the capacity for spiritual / moral reflection and growth. We may say that humans differ from all other creatures because of the self-reflective, rational nature of their thought processes – their capacity for abstract, symbolic as well as concrete deliberation and decision-making. This capacity gives the human a centeredness and completeness which allows the possibility for self-actualization and participation in a sacred reality (cf. Acts 17:28). ”

“Self-reflective, rational nature” is still very vague, but that is at least somewhat specific and intelligible. I have no idea whether that is relevant for what you consider “God´s image” to be, but it doesn´t matter, because, as I have told you many times already – there would not be any difference except for the difference in how they were created, that´s it, so whatever human attributes “God´s image” refers to, they´d be included either way.

Tom,

The image of God in humans is absolutely central to Christian theism.

You cannot expect me to define this term for you and you also cannot expect me to rely on some standard definition because there isn´t one.

To wave it off as you’ve done…

Well, remember what I said here:
“Both would have the exact same kind of sentience, they would be both conscious and self-aware, they would both be able to experience the same range of emotions as a consequence of the same effects, they would both have the same desires, they would both have the same kind of moral faculties, they would both have the same reasoning faculties and intuitions, they would both have the same kind of will and so on and so forth ad nauseam…”
– I indeed didn´t know what you had in mind with “God´s image”, and my point was that whatever human characteristics it corresponds to, they would be included because I´m not excluding anything and explicitly say that all that is “different” is the way how those beings got to be the way they are.

For this discussions, the relevant factor in being made in God’s image is that there is an ontological distinction between humans and the rest of God’s creation, none of which likewise bears his image. To be image-bearers means we share some of God’s qualities, including rationality and moral knowledge and responsibility, neither of which are explainable on material terms alone.

But I already said that the two groups of beings would not differ in that respect, I explicitly said that they would have the *same* rational, emotional and moral faculties (and so on, and so forth). So if that´s what “God´s image” means, then the two groups are not different in that respect.
Whether those faculties could be reduced to (or could emerge from) matter is not relevant because I never presupposed materialism for that thought experiment – we can also explicitly deny materialism for it if you prefer and just say that God created a universe that cannot be described by materialism (but rather some form of dualism or idealism wrt the ontology of minds, and some kind of platonic realism (or whatever you prefer) wrt the ontology of moral truth) in that thought experiment. Again, materialism is a complete non issue for the thought experiment as I phrased it.
All that matters for the conclusion is that the hypothetical God created something that is, for lack of a better word, “autonomous” or “free” from him – “free” in the exact same sense as the human will would be “free” under libertarian free will, i.e. free to lead to results that are not pre-determined by God willing them to happen.

So if your hypothetical two groups have God’s image in them, they both have moral knowledge and responsibility and should be treated equally in that light.

Well then my thought experiment demonstrated exactly what it was meant to demonstrate – there would be no difference between the two groups wrt moral duties because the (hypothetical) different ways for how we got to be what we are now do NOT lead to differences wrt our moral duties.

@Irenicus:

If you design an object for the purpose of doing x, but some accident (lets say a storm) damages the object and now it is only capable of doing y, then someone could look at it and make the intellectual judgment “that thing should be able to do x, but apparently it has been damaged so that it can only do y” – but you can NOT say that the function of this object is therefore “irrational”. That the object does y instead of x is neither the consequence of rationality, nor of irrationality – it has a non-rational reason. And the same is true for Feser´s hypothetical three-legged dog or a psychopath.

Since I have little patience for your misunderstandings and inability to read, much less the Endurance (or, to think of it, the skill) to correct them, this will be going nowhere, so peace and God bless you.

note(s):;
– this also goes for the other conversation in the other thread “A Very Strange and Sad Day for Life and Religion in Law…”.

G. Rodrigues @ #151,

I feel your frustration, which is why I no longer wade into these kind of discussions.

I am trying to figure out where Irenicus is really coming from. Is he motivated by (1) arrogance, anger and dishonesty, or (2) insecurity, or (3) irrationality? (Or something else?) If it’s #1 I don’t see much point in engaging him any further. If it’s #2 we need to challenge him. If atheism is the only rational alternative why does one need to show up on a Christian site to validate it? As far as #3, judging so far from what he has written that speaks for itself. (I don’t mean that as a compliment.) To be fair I know evangelical Christians who engage same kind of fallacious reasoning for (example, the KJV only-ists) and are just as stubborn about admitting the errors in their reasoning. Of course, it could it could be a combination of all three but let’s not get bogged down there.

I’m asking what Irenicus’ motives are. Maybe he can tell us. After all, he should know, shouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he?

Tom,

What matters is human’s ontological status. For this the question of origins is still vitally important.

No, it isn´t. You seem to assume that the “ontological status” of two things cannot be the same if they were created in different ways, and that´s, at least as a general principle, just false. Example:
When a yeast cell synthesizes a Hexokinase protein (thing A) and a human biologist synthesizes one in a lab (thing B) and then inserts it into the yeast cell – the two proteins are ontologically the same, although they were created in completely different ways.
And the same applies to my thought experiment, there is no ontological difference between the two kinds of beings, they only differ in how they were created, and that´s why your and BillT´s claims about the alleged moral importance of how we got to be the way we are, is false.

JAD,

I’m asking what Irenicus’ motives are. Maybe he can tell us.

I´ve read the toxic sludge that have been your comments in this thread so far. And at least wrt the issues that have been talked about here, you are the perfect storm of arrogance and ignorance. And given your unbelievable level of contempt directed at people like myself, I´m not going to respond to you any further – I´d rather engage a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.

scbrownlhrm,

Finally.

We have a straight answer.

Ontology doesn’t matter!

Where is that “straight answer”, and who gave it?

scbrownlhrm

Finally.

We have a straight answer.

Ontology doesn’t matter!

Where is that “straight answer”, and who gave it?

scbrownlhrm

Finally.

We have a straight answer.

Ontology doesn’t matter!

Where is that “straight answer”, and who gave it?

Also, please have a look at the discussion policies of this forum, especially items #8 and #11:
https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2007/12/discussion-policy/

scbrownlhrm

For the fourth time:

Finally.

We have a straight answer.

Ontology doesn’t matter!

Where is that “straight answer”, and who gave it?

Also, for the second time, please have a look at the discussion policies of this forum, especially items #8 and #11:
https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2007/12/discussion-policy/

Irenicsus,

What matters is human’s ontological status. For this the question of origins is still vitally important. Do you see how?

Irenicus,

Tom: What matters is human’s ontological status. For this the question of origins is still vitally important. Do you see how?

You: No, it isn´t.

Despite your irrational thought experiment of vacuums void of ontological status vis-a-vis origins, and worse, the ontological status of Man (literally) cannot exist in some pretend “metaphysical vacuum” wrt inescapable necessities pressing upon Reason as truth-finder amid the contours and essence of irreducible love verses irreducible indifference. And, also, and for all the same reasons, Man cannot exist in any such vacuum wrt Being Itself and therein wrt Goodness Itself verses – yet again – irreducible indifference.

You disagree.

We get that.

Because ontology (origins, final causes, lack of teleology, etc….) and metaphysical realities do not impact X’s inside of your vacuum.

Or are you saying something else?

If so, please clarify.

Irenicus,

Please clarify where you’ve been misrepresented.

How about comment #169? The word origins is in there several times.

Please show us where in that comment you are being misrepresented.

Have we read you wrong?

If so, how?

Irenicus,

That is exactly the point I made. You are making the bizarre claim that ontology (origins, final causes, lack of teleology, etc….) isn’t relevant to current ontological status.

It’s a nonsense claim.

Or do you mean that only *some* [ontology] impacts current [ontological] status? You know, not origins and not final causes, but, say, current neuronal reflexes?

Or what?

Can you clarify?

Irenicus,

So you are saying:

[A] [ontology], you know, origins, final causes, etc…, actually *DOES* impact current [ontological] status?

Or is it the way I stated it earlier…..

[B] ….does *NOT* impact current……? ….. Only *some* ontology impacts current ontological status….?

Or are both of those lies?

Or what?

scbrownlhrm,

Because fundamentally different ontological sets of irreducible causations soaked through every bit of all effects of said causations do not, and cannot, yield identical ontologies.

Aha, so “fundamentally different ontological sets of irreducible causations” are “soaked through every bit of all effects” of those very same(!) “causations” and that´s why those “ontological sets of irreducible causations” cannot be identical to themselves. Beautiful 😀

Irenicus,

If you change all definitions in all paradigms to equate to purely material essence, purely material causations, purely material effects, purely material means, and purely material ends, then A = B.

But what have you actually accomplished there other than to say exactly nothing?

Irenicus,

If you want to exclude fundamentally different causations in the two different paradigms, and thereby exclude the necessarily different effects of those (different) causations, then your A = B works. But if you don’t exclude causations / effects, then you’ve only a false identity claim.

It’s that simple.

Do you disagree?

If so, please explain how [A = causations/effects] which are fundamentally (irreducibly) different than [B = causations/effects] gets you to A = B.

Irenicus,

You’re assuming that final causes (and so on in Christian causations) do not exist.

Hence not only have you failed to explain the morality of yeast, but you can’t.

If you mean to say that Man and Yeast are equally moral — then well done.

That is accurate as far as we are concerned.

Or do you want to try again?

scbrownlhrm

You’re assuming that final causes (and so on in Christian causations) do not exist.

Another iteration of scbrownlhrm tilting at windmills.

Hence not only have you failed to explain the morality of yeast, but you can’t.

1. You ask how different causes could possibly lead to results that are ontologically the same.
2. I tell you that I already answered that and give you a specific example for this.
3. Your mind short-circuits and reboots, leading to data loss so that you completely forget what you have been asking (#1).
4. Your mind desperately tries to fill in the blanks (“he talked about a yeast cell, and earlier, there was also something about morality… I know! I must have asked him to explain the morality of yeast! Thanks brain!”)

This is amusing, but seriously, you need professional help.

Irenicus,

It’s not the morality of yeast per se — it’s morality period given that they (Yeast) do not have the same ontological status in A and in B. You seem to think you’ve established that Yeast in A and Yeast in B have the same ontological status.

You haven’t.

Because a make-believe vacuum free of ontology’s causes/effects is nonsense.

scbrownlhrm

You’re ignoring morality. That is what the thread is about. You offer us Yeast.

Wrong, you are rather incapable of remembering what you asked just a few minutes earlier.

So far, on morality, Yeast and Man are equal.

That is a rather strange position but if you insist on Yeast and Man being morally equal, be my guest.

The molecular structure is not equal in the two paradigms — that is to say — the ontological status of Yeast isn’t the same in the two paradigms *unless* you isolate that current molecular structure and put it in a vacuum free of all which precedes it and all which lay ahead of it and all causations *within* it (final causes in theism vs. indifference in non-theism).

Hint: For the Aristotelian, only the material and formal causes of x are internal causes and thus part of the ontology of x, the efficient and final causes of x are *external* causes and thus part of the ontology of the processes in which x *changes* – they are not part of the ontology of x itself.

scbrownlhrm

You are unteachable. The final causes of x are not conceived as parts of the ontology of x by people that believe in final causes – that´s not my position, I just bothered to read up on views different from mine while you did not even bother to try to understand your own position.

Yes, and, right now, there is no chain of causation in AT Meta but for the chain. Don’t be fooled by the Final Causes. Note the “Etc.”

“there is no chain of causation in AT Meta but for the chain”
This is pure undiluted gibberish again.

Fincke (an Atheist) writes:

“Teleology should not be at all out of bounds for atheists. Teleologists do not need to posit that there is an intelligent goal-giver who gives natural beings purposes to fulfill, as many theists think….. I am an atheistic virtue ethicist requiring no divine agency for the teleological dimensions of my ethics to make minimal sense and have minimal coherence. I am just describing purely naturalistically occurring patterns as universals or forms. I am saying that since humans’ very natures are constituted by a specific set of powers, fulfilling them is incumbent on humans as the beings that we are. It is irrational and a practical contradiction to destroy the very precondition of our own being (all things being equal). We have a rational imperative instead to flourish maximally powerfully according to the powers which constitute us ourselves….”

The appeal here is to the evolved Bell Curve of appetites as “universals” or as “forms”. It is called “Naturalistically Occurring Patterns”. Clusters are labeled as Universals and Forms and supposedly ground objective morality in naturalism. It even obligates reason, we’re told. On several fronts In A Post criticizing that position we see that it too will not work. Of course, that approach there just begs the question because it (inexplicably) ignores the parts/slices of the Bell Curve and Clusters (“Universals”) which it doesn’t “like”. Such convenient question begging just won’t do. And besides, even *if* the Bell Curve and Clusters become a smooth line, it still fails, as we are unpacking, and discovering, in this thread……..

Irenicus,

You may want to read the link in #209. It explains why, on A-T Meta, the causes within the Man (not causes outside the Man) do not get us to objective morality without God and yet Man (in Theism) finds that those *same* causes within the Man *are* irreducibly fused with a moral universe and land Man in objective morality. The “current ontological status” of Man without God does not “land” in objective morality. It lands in indifference. Inside the Man. Outside the Man. All of it. However, with God, the “current ontological status” of Man *does* land inside of objective morality. Inside the Man. Outside the Man. All of it.

A does not equal B.

A “paradigm” just is not made up of isolated parts immune to the rest of said paradigm. Vacuums just are not real and that is why the conclusions based on vacuums cannot comment on reality, which includes our physical bodies proper.

Tom is willing to grant you your (false) identity claim of A = B there on the body proper (molecules, etc.), though I am not. However, even with Tom’s generous Grant you are going to be severely underfunded should you seek to purchase any part of that very, very expensive metaphysical real estate.

The link in #209 goes further. Etc.

scbrownlhrm,
you seem to be trying to go down about half a dozen rabbit holes simultaneously, none of which appear to have anything to do with what I said so far but all of which regressed to your earlier pretentious gibberish (“purchase expensive metaphysical real estate”, “evolved Bell Curve of appetites as “universals”” etc.).
You are tilting at windmills.

Irenicus,

Your point about evolution and molecules “right now, right here” is appreciated.

However, the terms about the Universals and Bell Curves and Forms and Appetites (and Feelings) and so on, are in the link in #209 discussing the Non-Theist Fincke’s approach to Man’s status wrt moral ought and also in Feser’s 3 or 4 part discussion with Keith Parsons discussing the same topic. The terms are neither new nor gibberish. In fact, they are on occasion from our Non-Theist friends.

It’s fairly well worn territory. Hence the link. For context.

As noted, your point about “right now, this second, in Man” in evolutionary means arriving “here” is appreciated — but it is, by any measure, disingenuous to just “stop there” and that is because Man, right now, and the causes inside of Man, right now, are all a slice of a wider reality.

Example:

Even in Non-Theism the causations which are busy “causing” etc. within Man, within, say, Inherent Intentionality, are in fact Non-Intentional and Indifferent. Those causes are not “Intentional – Full Stop”, as it were. And “that fact” about our two paradigms has, even “just there” in the philosophy of Mind, problems with “right now, right here” because we have to completely de-construct Theism’s reach beyond the purely mechanistic there “inside the Man” to get your A to be equal to our B when it comes to the current ontological status — and that is *only* in the arena of Mind — never mind the rest.

So there are a lot of things we have to throw out, or jettison, in order to get “A = B” to be not only true but also still faithful to both A’s and B’s ontological (not epistemic) ingredients.

[1] Unguided evolution void of any and all environment nuanced on any level by Being Itself / God / Goodness Itself (which is impossible if God exists).

[2] Guided evolution.

[3] The entire body of eons that is Tooth and Claw from the ground up constituting Man in in the pains of Privation where necessarily it is the case that causation(s) sum to both Good and Privatized Good (Evil).

All three approaches speak on molecular motion, the causations therein, and the current ontic-status of such. If Being Itself vis-à-vis Goodness Itself vis-à-vis the immutable (irreducible) love with the Necessary Being in fact saturates the entirety of all three then we are dealing with far, far more than “just” one slice of material right here, right now, this second and that is (if God) ipso facto true of [1] as well.

Interestingly, Non-Theists faithfully affirm the all-encompassing metaphysical landscape of Genesis and they do so both when observing nature’s unmistakable straining along that incline towards E Pluribus Unum from the ground up through eons of Privation (Evil) within Tooth and Claw, and they do so when observing the schizophrenic array of causations within that same Privatized Good through those same eons. Their thoroughness in describing such a painful mess is uncanny as they affirm Christianity’s metaphysical landscape.

An entire Paradigm, an entire World – and entire Universe – soaked through with Tooth and Claw, soaked through with Privatized Good and thereby Evil, Lack, Brokenness, Thirst, Striving – from A to Z – soaked through with Final Causes and thereby Good, Reach, Teleos, Hope, Becoming – from A to Z – is precisely the World we all affirm, both Non-Theist and Christian.

Our Non-Theist friends testify on behalf of Scripture’s God.

There are only two options in a universe such as ours:

[1] It is a universe void of inherent intentionality, it is a universe void of inherent design, it is a universe void of all moral contours.

[2] It is a universe constituted of, defined by, explained by, soaked through with, Final Causes.

@Irenicus:

I didn´t immediately find where Andy was banned, but what was immediately apparent is that Andy found scbrownlhrm obnoxious for the exact same reasons that I do.

Then it means I am indeed misremembering and Andy was not banned.

@Irenicus:

And how are you not saying here “I´m not saying that Irenicus is Andy, but he is Andy and it strikes me as pitiful that he´d return to a blog that he has been banned from under another name?”

What I said is plain English and I explicitly disavowed the implicature you point out. If you want to imply that I am being less than honest and transparent here, your opinion is duly noted.

Irenicus,

You mean you are *not* appealing to the status of Man right now, right here, today wrt the evolutionary schema and its current “product”*?

*[Notice the use of the “….” there. See. There are several common, non FDA approved uses for such.]

G. Rodrigues

What I said is plain English and I explicitly disavowed the implicature you point out. If you want to imply that I am being less than honest and transparent here, your opinion is duly noted.

Oh I am not saying that you wanted to insinuate that I am Andy (and pitiable and pathetic). It just strikes me as dishonest that someone would insinuate such a thing instead of honestly expressing his opinion.
English is fun, isn´t it?
Seriously though, what exactly have I done to offend you? Afaict, I have been civil in every single comment directed at you and I also let your condescending parting shot slide without responding in kind. If this Andy riled you up and I behave in the same way, could you kindly say just what it is that we do that riles you up?

G. Rodrigues

Therefore, and barring some good reason, this is not something one would expect Irenicus to do.

Oh, you have given reasons – according to you, I have “much the same kind of Voice and manerisms”, and “Andy managed to rile up everyone and eventually got himself banned” which is “the same path seems to be what Irenicus is going down”.
We can drop this metadiscussion and fwiw, I actually considered you to be a thoughtful and mostly civil interlocutor (that´s why I did let your earlier parting shot slide) and I have honestly no idea what I did to offend you. I would understand it if, say, scbrownlhrm is offended by several things I said to him – but, again, everything I addressed to you was civil afaict.
You don´t have to answer of course (and I´m happy to drop this metadiscussion here), but I´d really like to know what I have done to offend you.

Irenicus,

On A = B, the apparent ontological (not epistemic) failures discussed in the last few comments are of some consequence. Perhaps you’d like to comment on them?

Also, Tooth and Claw, if Evil, is necessarily a privation of Good. The causations at work (then) would be both Good (final causes etc) and those of Evil.

Also, on inherent intention and Mind and Causes *within* Man, we have yet a third area where A = B fails.

Care to comment?

scbrownlhrm

Also, Tooth and Claw, if Evil, is necessarily a privation of Good.

No. That would only be so if you could show that a privation theory of evil is necessarily true. You could easily try to argue that a privation theory of evil is indeed true, but trying to argue that it is necessarily true is much more difficult than you can imagine.

The causations at work (then) would be both Good (final causes etc) and those of Evil.

Also, no. If you subscribe to a privation theory of evil, then evil is “insubstantial” (i.e., it has no substance – is not an entity), so there cannot be causes that are “evil”, “evil” would be just a word that you use to refer to causes that are not directed towards the good:
“For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,—the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents.”
– Augustine of Hippo

Tom,

We live in a culture that craves offense and therefore expects it in others, G. Rodrigues. He found it where there was none.

So G. Rodrigues talks about the “fact [] that commenter Andy managed to rile up everyone and eventually got himself banned” (note that according to him, he himself was included among the “everyone” that got riled up), says that “this same path seems to be what Irenicus is going down”, and when I conclude from that that something I said here got G. Rodrigues riled up – that means I´m “craving offense”?

Irenicus,

See my last comment. Evil and causation are not incompatible given that the causes at work are deficient in good. I’m not calling Evil a positive entity.

You should know that Rape entails both causation and the deficiencies.

I’d like to think you already knew that.

*Any* evil is so characterized.

BillT,

All that what you posted shows is that you can make things up and that they’re true for the world you made up. That’s not a thought experiment.

Has been addressed ad nauseam in all those tedious and repetitive explanation that you neither understood nor tried to understand.

A thought experiment challenges your readers to provide an answer to a theoretical/hypothetical position to illustrate a point, not just declare a theoretical/hypothetical position is true because you made it up.

Only I never did any such thing. I did nothing even remotely resembling it. Not explicitly and not implicitly. And I already explained to you in great detail what I have done instead – but you don´t get it and you have never made any efforts to understand it at all, you never even addressed those explanations beyond saying that you don´t need those “tedious and repetitive” explanations.
Well, as long as you don´t even try to understand what I´m saying and insist on replying to your own preconceived ideas instead, you leave me no choice other than silently observe you tilting at windmills.

@Tom,

Most contemporary atheism is naturalistic through and through, so I default to that version of atheism unless someone tells me they’re talking about something else.

But still, if you´d conclusively demonstrate naturalism to be false, you´ve given no reasons to accept theism by doing that, only reasons to reject naturalism. What do you mean by naturalism btw – from your links, I wasn´t sure if you equate naturalism with materialism or assume it to be the view that the universe is a causally closed system or both (I suspect it is both but just want to make sure).

Lets take the first example you link to – free will. First I´d point out here that there are concepts of “free will” that are a) logically coherent (which libertarian free will IMO is not), b) perfectly consistent with our everyday experiences and c) perfectly consistent with naturalism. Bob Doyle´s model is the most interesting one that I´m aware of (see http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/ and links therein ). But even if I´d agree that the issue of free will would demonstrate naturalism to be false, it would only cause me to reject naturalism, it wouldn´t move me even just an iota closer to theism because naturalism has absolutely nothing to do with why I reject theism.
This would only move me closer to theism if it would be connected to an argument along the line “… and this makes the existence of God more likely, because [insert arguments here]”.

And this is a widespread weakness of contemporary Christian apologetics afaict, for a lot of the literature that is recommended to me by Christians, I find plenty of references to and arguments against naturalism that all seem to be based on the assumption “if only they´d reject naturalism, then they would see that the Bible got it right”. And I always wonder where apologists got that idea from, yes, naturalism is a very popular view among atheists, but that doesn´t translate to the equation “Argument against naturalism = Argument FOR theism”.

@Tom,

Still, from a brief glance at your informationphilosopher link, there’s too much reliance on random thoughts, which are no better for agent causality than determined thoughts

Not at all, Doyle´s model relies on randomness only to enable true alternatives from which an adequately determined will can select.
And that is afaict, the only logically coherent version of agent causality – the alternative for agent causation is that humans start completely new causal chains when they make a free choice, and that is a logically self-refuting idea.

On [1] through [5] in #252:

Note the “ontic-location” of irreconcilably different causations: currently right now and also within the Man.

Right now. This minute. Inside us.

Full stop.

As we press into such causation(s) we find that the contours of love and of intentionality and therein of all things moral are all radically different claims as to said causations in [A] Non-Theistic projects and [B] Theistic projects.

The ceaseless reciprocity (full stop) within the triune God finds immutable love (full stop) even as the Divine Mind finds the simplicity of the utterly volitional (full stop). If science (scientism) cannot find said elemental substrates, that is neither here nor there for the claim by the Christian is that (as Debilis notes) there are realities which that model (physical science) cannot find. Scientism is being challenged as to that which can and cannot give us a more exhaustive picture of reality. Hence to opine that science cannot find X is merely begging the question and avoiding one’s own bitter root of non-rational and intention-less causation.

That any Non-Theist would even attempt to claim such irreducible causations as his own (Full Stop) is, well, sure, embarrassing, but, more importantly, such just isn’t informative as it’s merely about imaginary mega0-structures which, everybody knows, cannot even in principle escape the bitter root of non-rational and intention-less causation.

Irenicus,

[1] *Why* is this or that X morally wrong? (See Bill T’s question earlier).

[2] On Christianity, interior causation within us, right now, houses “Inherent Intentionality — Full Stop”, such being the absolute ground of reality itself. On Christianity. Do you disagree that this is true of Christianity’s claim?

[3] On Non-Theism, there is no such bedrock / ground to reality itself. Do you disagree?

This is simple stuff.

Irenicus,

The inherent intentionality in Man, right now, this second, lands upon the creative act of God, Who is Himself Inherently Intentional. A begets A.

Imago Dei.

The ontological difference between inherent verses as-if intentionality etc. is unpacked in Philosophy of Mind and other places. Your (ontological) B cannot beget (yield, whatever) the Christian’s (ontological) A.

So, again, questions 1, 2, and 3.

Care to answer them?

Or to continue dancing and evading?

Tom *is* referencing the Imago Dei after all………

Tom:

Intentionality etc….

A good place to start for the problem of intentionality is the thought experiment of John Searle as it mirrors the attempted thought experiment of Irenicus. Basically it is the “silicon brain” thought experiment, in which doctors replace our (your) neurons with silicon chips which then perform the very same actions (causes/effects and etc.) as the brain they replaced. It is important to remember that, on a material based premise, this is in principle a perfectly logical premise as science will – should she figure out the entirety of the brain – get us to such an ability. A perfect copy of the entire carbon-based network that “is” “Tom’s Brain” is in principle perfectly valid science.

That in-principle possibility is radically different than the erroneous thought experiment of Irenicus which seems to equate the causes at work inside of those silicon chips (or our brains) to be identical (Man A = Man B identity claim) as the causes at work inside of Man should Man house the Imago Dei. In short, neither Man A nor Man B house the interface of the causes which we find at work inside of (on the one hand) the inherently non-rational and intention-less carbon based networks and (on the other hand) the causes which we find at work inside of the inherently rational and intentional (and immaterial) Imago Dei (Mind, Rationality, Intentionality). Regarding the content of Man A and of Man B, the content within metaphysical zombies is directly applicable. The link there is to Feser’s blog and is of obvious significance here, whereas the following quote (Feser, Philosophy of Mind) is a basic look to the distinction between inherent verses “as-if” intentionality which speaks, in part, to the work of John Searle and relates in part to carbon based “networks”.

Quote:

“This sort of theory proposes that the meaning or intentional content of any particular mental state (a belief, desire, or whatever) derives from the role it plays within a system of mental states, all of which, as we’ve seen, seem logically interrelated in the manner briefly discussed in chapters 3 and 6, since to have any one mental state seems to require having a number of others along with it. The idea is that what gives the belief that Socrates is mortal the precise meaning it has is that it is entailed by other beliefs meaning that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, that together with a belief meaning that all mortals will eventually die it entails a belief meaning that Socrates will eventually die, and so on. If we think of beliefs, desires, and the like as a vast system of logically interconnected elements, the theory holds that each element in the system gets its meaning from having precisely the place in the system it has, by bearing exactly the logical and conceptual relations it bears to the other elements. (More precisely, it is the objects of beliefs, desires, and the like — sentences of Mentalese according to the CRTT, or, more generically and for those not necessarily committed to the CRTT, “mental representations” of some other, non-sentential sort — that bear meaning or intentional content. But for the sake of simplicity, we can ignore this qualification in what follows.)

There seems to be a serious problem with the conceptual role approach, namely that even if it is granted that mental states have the specific meaning or content they do only because of their relations to other mental states, this wouldn’t explain how mental states have any meaning at all in the first place. That a particular belief either implies other beliefs or is implied by them presupposes that it has some meaning or other: nothing that was completely meaningless could imply (or be implied by) anything. The very having of logical and conceptual relations assumes the prior existence of meaning, so that no appeal to logical and conceptual connections can (fully) account for meaning. Moreover, if belief A gets its content from its relations to beliefs B and C, and these get their content from their relations to beliefs D, E, and F, we seem destined to be led either in a circle or to an infinite regress.

Either way, no ultimate explanation of intentional content will have been given. To provide such an explanation thus inevitably requires an appeal to something outside the network, something which can impart meaning to the whole. John Searle, who endorses something like the conceptual role theory of meaning, acknowledges that logical and conceptual relations between mental states cannot be the whole story if circularity or infinite regress is to be avoided. He therefore postulates that the entire “Network” of intentional mental states (he capitalizes Network to signify its status as a technical term) rests on what he calls a “Background” of non-intentional capacities to interact with the world around us. We have, for example, such intentional mental states as the desire to have a beer and the belief that there is beer in the refrigerator, and these mental states do, in part, get the specific meaning they have via their relations to each other and to other mental states in the broader Network.

But ultimately these mental states, and the Network as a whole, function only against a Background of capacities, such as the capacity to move about the world of physical objects, pick them up, manipulate them, and so on. This capacity is not to be identified with the belief that there is a real external world of physical objects; for if it were such an intentional mental state, then it would have to get its meaning from other mental states, and thus couldn’t serve as part of the Background that ends the regress of mental states. The capacity in question is rather something unconscious and without intentionality, a way of acting rather than a way of thinking. One acts as if one had the belief in question, though one in fact does not. While this capacity could in principle become a conscious, intentional mental state — one could come to have the explicit belief that there is a real world of external physical objects that I can manipulate and move about within — this would mean that this particular capacity has moved out of the Background and into the Network, and now rests on some other unconscious, non-Intentional Background capacity or way of acting.

There is, in short, always some set of capacities or other that comprises the Background (even if it is not always the same set for different people, or even for the same person at different times), and these capacities serve to ground the Network of intentional mental states. There is much to be said for Searle’s hypothesis of the Background, but it seems that it cannot save the conceptual role theory, for to speak of a “non-intentional capacity for acting” is to speak ambiguously. Consider that when you act without the conscious belief that there is an external world of physical objects, but merely manifest a capacity to interact with the world of physical objects, your capacity isn’t non-intentional in the same sense that an electric fan’s capacity to interact with the world of physical objects is non-intentional. You behave “as if” you had a conscious, intentional belief in a world of physical objects, but of course you don’t, because it typically never even occurs to you either to believe or doubt that there is such a world: you just interact with the world, period. The fan also behaves “as if” it believed there was a world of external physical objects (that it “wants” to cool down, say); but of course it doesn’t really have this belief (or any wants) at all. In the case of the fan, this is not because it just hasn’t occurred to the fan to think about whether there is such a world, for the fan isn’t capable of such thoughts; it is rather because, strictly speaking, the fan doesn’t really “act” or “behave” at all, as opposed to just making movements. And the reason we don’t regard it as acting or behaving in the same sense we do is precisely because it doesn’t have intentionality — it is a dumb, meaningless, hunk of steel and wires.

We on the other hand don’t merely make physical movements: the waving of your hand when your friend enters the room isn’t just a meaningless movement, but an action, the action of greeting your friend. If it were just a meaningless movement — the result of a seizure, say — we wouldn’t count it as an action at all; it wouldn’t in that case be something you do, but rather something that happened to you. The fan, however, is capable of making nothing but meaningless movements. For something genuinely to behave or act as we do requires that it does have intentionality — action and behavior of the sort we exhibit are themselves manifestations of intentionality, and thus presuppose it. But in that case, an appeal to a “capacity for action” cannot provide the ultimate explanation of intentionality. We need to know why our capacities for action are different from the mere capacities for movement that a fan exhibits. Merely noting, à la Searle’s Background hypothesis, that our capacities are non-intentional ways of acting cannot help, for that they are genuinely ways of acting is precisely what needs to be explained. Indeed, since they are ways of acting, they cannot be literally non-intentional, for if they were, they would no more be true ways of acting than are the capacities of an electrical fan. A capacity for action is, as a matter of conceptual necessity, an intentional capacity. In fairness to Searle, it isn’t clear that he intends his hypothesis of the Background to serve as a complete explanation of intentionality. His aim may be just to draw out some implications of the fact that mental states are logically and conceptually related to one another in a Network. The point, though, is that his way of avoiding the circularity or regress that threaten any conceptual role theory cannot be appealed to in order to vindicate such a theory as a complete theory of meaning — and that it may even be incoherent, if Searle holds that the capacities and ways of acting that form the Background are literally devoid of intentionality.”

End quote.

Irenicus,

I made my peace with scb a long time ago and admire what he brings here. If you have a problem with him use your own words to describe it. It’s more than a little rude to have you use my words when you don’t even have the courtesy to reply to my posts.

Irenicus,

*WHY*, on your own terms, is it morally wrong to do this or that ‘Action-X’?

Tom, Bill T.,

As per #266, typically the use of the term “E Pluribus Unum” causes a handful of Christians to sort of panic as they take it to be a replacement for Father/Son/Spirit rather than a description of personal interfaces and of simplicity (“Us” vis-à-vis Trinity, etc.).

So there is this often-included comment:

*Disclaimer* regarding “E Pluribus Unum” syntax:

Lest those of us who are Christian begin to panic at the descriptive / prescriptive of “E Pluribus Unum”, be assured that such is *not* an express referent to that which *is* “Father, Eternally Begotten Son, Spirit” and so on. *Rather*, such is to help address (in part), among other things, the painfully misinformed presuppositions about Christianity and about Reality which seem to fuel our Non-Theist friend’s struggle with equating “Being Itself” to that which is, irreducibly, “Goodness Itself”. Such carries us into necessary interfaces within all that is perception (the mind’s perception of itself and other minds, etc..) and within all that is mind and within all that is love and within all that is reciprocity amid the elemental substrates of personhood and thereby force both reason and logic into the embrace of “The True” (not materialism’s useful fictions, etc…) over inside of all such contours of (stay focused…. #266….), first, the unavoidable interfaces of Self/Other [.….as in personal interfaces….. I/You….. Self/Other…. Me/You… Knower/Known…. those interfaces and elemental substrates constituting two of our three inescapable distinctions…..]. Then we keep moving for we have not accounted for the whole show just yet as all moral semantics converge within perception’s and within mind’s and within love’s third and inescapable distinction in unicity’s E Pluribus Unum there in the “Singular-Us” embedded in Scripture’s God from A to Z from Whom streams all conceivable means/ends related to Self-Other-Us. No claims upon Goodness Itself are even possible but for the uniquely Christian Archetype which “is” the categorical and unavoidably triune set of interfaces comprising Trinity’s irreducible reciprocity amid the elemental pouring/filling discovered within the simplicity that is the immutable love of the Necessary Being.

Irenicus,

Clarifications:

First, in #266, number 4 (slightly rewarded here to clarify) stated this:

[4] Perfect reciprocity. In the Triune God we find all of these interfaces void of imperfection within the timeless and ceaseless reciprocity which we find in the “simplicity” of “singularity” that is “Trinity”. Do you refute that such is housed in the Christian paradigm? Do you refute that “E Pluribus Unum” in the *human* sense is reaching for, aiming towards, the teleos of literal perfection? Or is it all at bottom just a temporary illusion vis-à-vis evolution’s non-rational and intention-less causations “causing” the proverbial “us” to chase after a “Goal” which can never (in fact) be “Actualized”?

In that comment the semantics (even the ontology) of the reference there to “inherent vs. as-if intentionality” was obviously referring to #261, in case that was not clear.

Another clarification:

In #267 I briefly unpacked the “personal interfaces” which we find in (whole) love and in Trinity, and, in #268 I asked you for your own ontology of love. Obviously in the Christian paradigm it lands in the lap of God, specifically with respect to Trinity. Don’t mistake “oneness” and “cooperation” and “E Pluribus Unum” for a replacement (here) for Father/Son/Spirit. Instead, those terms are meant to explore, and perhaps explain at least in part, the description of the fundamental personal interfaces found in the context of (whole) love and also as a description of the “unicity” or the “simplicity” or the “oneness” which is also found in the context of (whole) love and which is also found in the uniquely Christian “Us” vis-à-vis “Trinity”.

In short, both Trinity and (whole) love find in their ontologies the inescapably triune topography of personal interfaces subsumed in the trilogy of Self-Other-Us.

If you cannot find those “lines”, or those “personal interfaces”, those “contours”, over inside of the human experience of love, then, to be blunt, you’re just not looking. It’s ubiquitous and, in fact, fills libraries. The love of one with one’s beloved saturates the experience of “oneness” in said libraries — over eons, as a matter of fact.

Regarding that unavoidably triune topography of both (whole) love and Trinity, follow closely and let me know if you get lost on the premises inferred here:

Emphatically this same topography holds unyieldingly (else reductio ad absurdums painfully emerge) through all that is perception itself (mind’s perception of itself and of other minds and of reality) and through (thereby) mind itself and through (as noted) love itself, and – thereby on all three counts – through both the entirety of the express experience of (on Man’s end) and the express ontology of (on God’s end) that which just is Being Itself.

Think about that.

And think about how Non-Theism’s ontology of “love” falls apart, collapses, breaks apart, becomes non-entity, long, long before we move very far at all.

The challenge from the Christian to the Non-Theist here is that it is not possible for him to escape the problems of (inherent) volitional-ity, of (inherent) intentionality, and of (in Non-Theism’s paradigm) the full and final metaphysical elimination of love. Why? Because an utterly arbitrary and mutable and non-rational and non-volitional….. void also of inherent intentionality…. topography emerges on his end with respect to all moral epistemology (and ontology) for love itself just is constituted of that topography.

The challenge to the Non-Theist here is *not* that there is a *gap* which knowledge will one day *fill*, but, rather, the challenge is that it is in fact even in principle impossible for the means available to the (at bottom) material based and/or Non-Theistic paradigm to ever escape these problems. The available means there just cannot do the necessary work needed in order to transcend that vacuous topography.

Bringing the esoteric experience filling those libraries mentioned earlier down to raw epistemology and down to raw ontology as such relates (ultimately) to “Trinity” is difficult, and wordy, but, it is a process which the Non-Theist cannot even attempt without — at some ontological seam somewhere — annihilating love, and ipso facto with it, morality.

Afaict, I did reply to all of your posts.

Only in the same imaginary world where you think your “thought experiment” actually proved something to be true outside of that imaginary world.

Have you ever had an internet atheist tell you that “you are not being very Christian”? Who are they to tell us what is, or is not, Christian? Do they really understand Christian ethics that well?

Of course, sometimes Christians can be jerks. On the other hand, however, many, if not most, atheists come here with the false stereotype that to be Christian you have to be non-confrontational and nice. This is the meek and mild way that Jesus is often portrayed in the movies. However, Jesus was not typically kind and gentle with his hostile interlocutors. Neither did he hesitate to point out their hypocrisy. For example, look at Matthew 22 beginning at vs. 15 and chapter 23.

Why do we never hear from Christians to an atheist “that’s not very atheistic of you”? Or, “you are not being very atheistic.” The answer should be obvious. Neither atheism nor any atheistic world view (since some atheist don’t think atheism itself is a world view) provides a sufficient foundation for ethics. Christian’s know that and so do the atheists. Indeed, most of what atheists living in western society believe morally or ethically has been coopted from Christianity and Judaism. That by itself is hypocritical.

Ironically, the secularism and atheism we presently see infecting the culture of western societies is actually a Christian heresy. I think if we trace the history we see, on the one hand, that the roots go back to the Protestant Reformation, on the other, the French revolution. There were no avowed atheists in “Christian” Europe before the Protestant Reformation. If you can think of one, tell me.

I’m not saying that the Protestant Reformation was bad in and of itself but that rather as a byproduct it gave rise to some heterodox thinking that led to theological liberalism which in turn has “evolved” or mutated into secular progressivism and militant atheism. As Christian heresies secularism and atheism have held on to and perverted vestiges of Christian ethics and morality. For example, our modern concept of human rights is a distinctly Judeo-Christian. While we see subtle hints of it in ancient Greek society, the substance is unequivocally Judeo-Christian.

John Zmirak summarizes this historical trend nicely in an article he has written for The Stream.

The way that leftists unwittingly do this devil’s work is to take some element of Christian ethics and grossly exaggerate it, cut it off from any context, and make of it an idol. Hence “compassion,” “inclusiveness,” “social justice” or “equality” take the place of the person of Jesus and become the object of worship. C.S. Lewis warned against this temptation in Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. In its fullest form, such political idolatry can be seen in Liberation Theology, which perverts the church into a revolutionary Marxist vanguard.

https://stream.org/trump-voting-christians-liberal-pastors-get-crying-wolf/

[Completely autonomously] does not, and indeed cannot, in any possible world, equate to [Void of Being Itself] — as per the Christian paradigm. If we redefine God to *god*, then, and only then, could such a state of affairs be possible.

Whereas, No-God yields a necessarily and categorically different product as said product does not, and indeed cannot, in any possible world, equate to [Soaked through with Being Itself]. If we redefine God to *god*, then, and only then, can such a state of affairs be possible.

That of which Man is constituted of, soaked through with, sustained by, laced through with Final Causes, and so on, is, in Bill.T’s thought experiment, God and not *god*, is Being Itself (the Christian God and hence the Christian causal paradigm) and not this or that continuum of particle (or whatever) in motion (or whatever).

That of which Man is constituted of, soaked through with, sustained by, and so on in Irenicus’ thought experiment is *god* and not God, is utterly void of Being Itself (the Christian God), is laced through and through — not with Final Causes — but with this or that continuum of particle (or whatever) in motion (or whatever).

In fact, given what G-O-D means in the Christian causal paradigm, it is necessarily impossible for Bill T and Irenicus to be describing the same state of affairs where Man is concerned.

Hence, Bill.T.’s point stands intact and Irenicus’ point stands as not only incoherent but also impossible.

Final causes are dismissed by Irenicus as he fears they are entirely foreign to the interior of the Man, as we discussed earlier in the thread.

That is because his *god* is not the Christian G-O-D in that to jettison final causes is to jettison the “Entire Metaphysical Singularity” that is the “Christian Causal Paradigm” and hence one cannot just ignore final causes and think his work is done. One must ignore (then) the “Entire Metaphysical Singularity” that is the “Christian Causal Paradigm” which necessarily impacts the entire Created Order.

Once one steps into the Christian paradigm one is dealing with that causal paradigm (singular, not plural), and such saturates, constitutes, the entire “Created Order”. The primordial datum (to borrow a term from D. Hart) inside of that singular causal paradigm is necessarily foreign to and unreachable by any No-God causal paradigm.

The sort of pure isolation Irenicus is seeking just isn’t possible given what G-O-D means in the Christian paradigm. There is no single part or contour or causal interface (or whatever) of that paradigm which is “removable” all by itself which will not (by said removal) entirely re-invent an entirely Non-Christian edifice.

Irenicus,

Given your nonsensical edifice of late, it seems where, I mean were, I mean wear, I mean *we’re* twins then 😉

Twin,

ed·i·fice

ˈedəfəs/ noun
1.
a building, especially a large, imposing one.

synonyms: building, structure,  construction, pile, complex; 

property,development, premises

“the imposing new edifice on Whitfield Street”

2.
a complex system of beliefs.

“the concepts on which the edifice of capitalism was built”

————

There is no necessary “inherent internal consistency” there. One *CAN* argue pro/con that the concepts on which the edifice of capitalism was built on is or is not [should be ‘are or are not’ but you seem ambitious in your agenda, so a little more for you] incoherent.

As in this thread with your rather complex though nonsensical edifice.

Twin,

ed·i·fice

ˈedəfəs/

noun

1.

a building, especially a large, imposing one.

synonyms: building, structure, construction, pile, complex; 

property,development, premises

“the imposing new edifice on Whitfield Street”

2.

a complex system of beliefs.

“the concepts on which the edifice of capitalism was built”

———

The meaning is as per [2] of a standard use of the term: A complex system of beliefs. The edifice of capitalism.

*Its* neither inherently coherent nor inherently incoherent.

[Its, It’s…] A little fuel for your peculiar and off-topic agenda.

“Capitalism is internally and/or inherently coherent.”

That’s a claim one can argue in favor of.

‘Thats’ also a claim one can argue against.

[Thats/That’s] is for your peculiar and off-topic agenda.

Twin,

So you are claiming that the edifice of capitalism is internally and / or inherently coherent?

If so, is it permissible to argue against such a claim?

Twin,

So you ARE claiming that the edifice of capitalism is, by definition, internally and / or inherently coherent such that the word edifice ipso facto excludes any and all from arguing against the claim that the edifice of capitalism is internally and /or inherently coherent.

[Edifice ~~ A complex system of beliefs]

The edifice of Christianity is nonsensical.

The edifice of Christianity is inherently and/or internally coherent.

By your definition, then:

Christianity is internally and/or inherently coherent such that all are excluded from arguing against that claim.

Twin,

The complex system of beliefs that is the edifice of Christianity is, then, quite full of sense such that one cannot claim otherwise, such that one cannot employ the word ‘nonsence’ with respect to Christianity.

Ever.

At all.

[nonsence / nonsense] is again for your off-topic agenda.

Twin,

Edifice: A complex system of beliefs.

That’s the easy part.

The hard part is this:

Your move to conflate the term [complex] for the phrase [full of sense] such that the combination of terms [“nonsense/edifice”] is by definition a near oxymoron is a move which is, while entertaining, simply wrongheaded given that the term [complex] does not even mean, nor even necessitate, [full of sense].

A complex and quite sensible system of beliefs (like Christianity).

A complex and quite nonsensical system of beliefs (like Non-Theism).

Twin,

If the term “Non-Theism” troubles you, simply change it to something else, like, say, “We are almost certain that God does not exist”.

Also, you still have *not* adequately addressed the following definitions and their usage:

Your move to conflate the term [complex] for the phrase [full of sense] such that the combination of terms [“nonsense/edifice”] is by definition a near oxymoron is a move which is, while entertaining, simply wrongheaded given that the term [complex] does not even mean, nor even necessitate, [full of sense].

Twin,

We find, in our journey, many, many, many quite robust and complex and intricate systems of beliefs (….edifices….) which are, when challenged, quite lacking in sense. Sometimes it takes centuries for such to be adequately unpacked.

It’s unfortunate that you disagree with that given that such is the standard use of the term (edifice) in many, many settings. Including several dictionaries.

And, such is unfortunate for you given that we all experience such complex systems of beliefs (edifices) which, over time, perhaps even centuries, turn out to be quite lacking in sense.

Since you obviously (and inexplicably) disagree with that:

If you prefer other settings and other definitions where word complex must actually mean full of sense, well that is fine if you want to make that move – but I’m justified in my usage here. Which is unfortunate for you given your off-topic agenda.

Unfortunately this last series of comments about [“Edifice: A complex system of beliefs”] stems *not* from the topic at hand, but from your own personal off-topic agenda.

That’s obvious given the standard use of the terms edifice, complex, and full of sense.

The topic at hand being, of course, that it’s apparent that your Non-Christian edifice is quite an intricate system of beliefs and, also, it is a system of beliefs that is quite lacking in sense given that it means to draw conclusions (from a Non-Christian X) about what the Christian paradigm does and does not say about a specific topic.

Irenicus,

If you want to assert that Non-Christian premises and truth claims sensibly explain what Christian premises and truth claims state about a topic, and thereby equate the two, such that A = B, well that is for you to attempt.

We’re merely pointing out that the substrate (your substrate) which you equate to Christian substrate where Man is concerned are not identical substrates.

[A] does not, and *cannot* equate to [B].

That is why your thought experiment is failing to inform us of anything which Christianity claims (or *can* claim) about Man assuming that Man is inside of the Christian paradigm.

Also:

I’m curious.

Given that we all experience complex systems of beliefs (edifices) which, over time, perhaps even centuries, turn out to be quite lacking in sense, why do you claim that such has not been, and is not, a part of our shared human experience across the centuries?

We clearly disagree here, and so I’m just curious why you believe in such a misguided idea.

Irenicus,

[A] You take the phrase “completely independent from God” (where Man’s origins are concerned and/or where evolution is concerned) to mean something which Bill T, myself, and Tom do not mean and in fact cannot mean given the casual paradigm of Christianity (etc.)…. Being Itself (etc.) …. and so on. The unpacking of what we are seeing inside of Man fails to end in mere particle cascades (or whatever) once Man is inside of the Christian paradigm.

[2] Humanity experiences complex systems of beliefs (edifices) which, over time, perhaps even centuries, turn out to be quite lacking in sense. Therefore, the phrase “nonsensical edifice” not only has common English on its side, but also large swaths of humanity’s history.

Irenicus,

As noted: Some lenses give us a far more exhaustive picture of reality than others. Some lenses give us far more observations than others.

We can add, and must add, the obvious:

Some lenses, because they give us far more observations than others, also carry us into very different conclusions than others.

That is why your “which conclusions do and do not follow from a specific premise…” and your, “Whether we are the product of unguided evolution or not is completely irrelevant….” are simply, and completely, wrong.

As to which lens gives us a more exhaustive picture of reality, and hence which conclusions necessarily and/or rationally follow from this or that premise, well now, that seems to be at the heart of the topic at hand in Tom’s OP (opening piece).

Qualification:

In the previous comment there was this:

“The Christian paradigm is unique in that it finds — in Trinity — the (borrowing from P. Alawonde) “absolute concept” (Being) to necessarily or irreducibly house……..”

The borrowed phrase there may need some explanation as to why it is relevant to the topic of morality. The phrase is referring to the very ground of all being itself (including our own being as contingent beings), namely, the only non-contingent being, which is “God” or “Being Itself”, which are, obviously, very different references than discussing going from non-being to being (as in any contingent being etc.). The term of “absolute concept” came from Alawonde in this:

P. Alawonde: “M.G. how does ‘order of being’ mean being is subsumed under order? The ‘of’ clearly tells us what is subject to what. Being is an absolute concept, indeed the first thing the intellect grasps. It can be subordinate to nothing.”

M.G. replied: “Well I mean, when you say being is .. “An absolute concept” it subsumes being under the category of absolute concepts, as if the idea of absoluteness and the idea of concept preceded “being”. The general problem is just how can “being” be the genus of all things while at the same time being specified under certain categories? Even more generally, how can two things be the species and genus of one another at the same time? Perhaps there is a fallacy in my thinking, idk? This is problematic because we are explaining a basic concept with a concept that is subordinate to it.”

P. Alawonde replied: “It seems you’re conflating the several senses in which ‘is’ may be used. That being is an absolute concept does not preclude its being unique to that genus, as you’re implicitly assuming. So, to stop you getting yourself confused further, being is the most absolute concept.”

This has an immediate and direct impact upon the fundamentally different conclusions which we make about morality / man in *any* Christian setting with respect to *any* path from non-being to being:

“The idea is perhaps best stated in Platonic terms of the sort Aquinas uses (in an Aristotelianized form) in the Fourth Way. To be a tree or to be a stone is merely to participate in “treeness” or “stoneness.” But to be at all – which is the characteristic effect of an act of creation out of nothing – is to participate in Being Itself. Now the principle of proportionate causality tells us that whatever is in an effect must be in some way in its cause. And only that which just is Being Itself can, in this case, be a cause proportionate to the effect, since the effect is not merely to be a tree or to be a stone, but to be at all. So only God – who just is pure actuality or Being Itself rather than a being among others – can cause a thing to exist ex nihilo.” (Feser)

The fact that Being Itself (God) is the “absolute concept” (borrowed from P. Alawonde) finds us at a kind of juncture:

“As Plotinus’s remark indicates, that does not mean that the will does not have a role to play. But that is true wherever reason leads us to a conclusion we might not like, not merely in matters of religion. And once you have allowed yourself to see the truth that reason leads you to, what reason apprehends is (given the convertibility of the transcendentals) as good and beautiful as it is real. If you find yourself intellectually convinced that there is a divine Uncaused Cause who sustains the world and you in being at every instant, and don’t find this conclusion extremely strange and moving, something that leads you to a kind of reverence, then I daresay you haven’t understood it. Of course, there are those whose heads and hearts are so out of sync that they cannot follow both at the same time. But we shouldn’t mistake this pathology for an insight into human nature. (Feser)

It is in the context of the absolute that we find love’s interfaces and therein it is in this sense of the absolute that we find love’s ceaseless reciprocity within “Trinity”, or the Christian’s triune God, as discussed earlier. That is why, when it comes to what Man’s *being* is in the Christian paradigm, it is the case that morality “absolutely” and “irreducibly” begins and ends in “God”, which is to say in “Being Itself, which is to say as only the Christian can vis-à-vis the God Who is love, in “immutable love”. That is why it is a “metaphysical claim” which the Christian genre alone (and nowhere in Non-Theism) finds implicitly and explicitly in the very ground of all being – man’s included.

scbrownlhrm

Well, that seems to bring us around full circle. Everything you’ve built up in your edifice is clearly irrelevant to the topic at hand given that nothing in your edifice has anything to do with Christianity’s claims and premises and therefore your claim of….

Whether we are the product of unguided evolution or not is completely irrelevant – which is precisely what I aimed to demonstrate and did demonstrate…

is entirely vacuous given that we find entirely different conclusions and observations when looked at through the Christian paradigm’s lens versus when looked at through any Non-Theistic (and in particular Non-Christian) paradigm’s lens.

Nope. My thought experiment indeed did demonstrate this and the truth of this conclusion is 100% independent of whether Christianity is true or not – the conclusion would be true if Christianity is false and would still be true if Christianity is true.

Apparently in Atheism or Non-Theism it is the case that the Science of Man and the Science of Reality conclude that [Reality’s / Man’s] irreducible datum or primordial datum or rock-bottom of *all* causation(s) throughout all of “actuality” is immutable love and such is true of *any* path from non-being to being. Who’d-a thunk such-a-ting. But so it is.

[1] Relevant beliefs here fall in line, for the most part, with the links above. And with the link which follows.

One is free to take them or leave them.

[2] The topic is this or that path from non-being to being, and in particular the narrow slice that is “particle cascades” and the “unbroken chain of continuity” or “continuum of causation that is “physics”” – which is all the Non-Theist has to work with when building his edifice (complex system of beliefs) of causation. Inside such an unbroken chain of continuity (the Non-Theist’s paradigm) we find nothing whatsoever, at all, anywhere, of efficient or formal or final causality or etc.. Those causes within physicality are [A] non-existent in any materialist / non-theistic paradigm and [B] are not and cannot sum to the whole show given that physicality is not and cannot be the whole show. Whatever evolution is, that path from non-being to being, of Dirt-To-Man, it is categorically different not only because of what is discussed in the link in this comment (how odd that Non-Theists fight so hard against the idea of formal causes, whereas Irenicus wants to claim them as his own non-theistic causal paradigm) but also because of the wider causal paradigm discussed in the several links in the last comment which subsumes and transcends mere physicality and which annihilates all of the Non-Theist’s attempts at infusing the Christian’s paradigm with his own (Non-Theistic) paradigm’s over-determination. Well, “over-determination” as in,

“But the problem has to do with his assumption that the microphysical level is metaphysically privileged (an assumption I criticize in Scholastic Metaphysics). We need not take issue with Merricks’ rejection of overdetermination. (Note that the issue of “overdetermination” has nothing to do with causal determinism. The idea is just that if a cause A suffices all by itself to explain an effect E, the assumption that there was some further cause B involved would make E overdetermined in the sense of having more causes than are necessary to account for it. Whether the relationship between A and E is one of deterministic causation, specifically, is not at issue.)” (Feser, linked in earlier comment)

[3] We’re glad to see that our Non-Theist friend(s) agree with the Christian in their conclusion that the Science of Man and the Science of Reality conclude that [Reality’s / Man’s] irreducible datum or primordial datum or rock-bottom of *all* causation(s) throughout all of “actuality” is immutable love vis-à-vis the ground and source of all being, namely Being Itself, and that such is true of *any* path from non-being to being.

Irenicus,

[1] If you find the three links to Feser to be word salad where causation and man’s volition are concerned and where evolution is concerned, I can’t help you. You can take them or leave them.

[2] You seem to assert that if I go on my merry way, and God lets me, and, if No-God, and particles cascade (materialism) this way and that way, fully defined by the causes within physics alone – full stop, then both Man and our respective causal paradigms are identical in both situations in their path from non-being to being.

[3] You leave out of your accounting all the affairs of the rock-bottom of all causation there in what just is [A] immutable love, Trinity, G-O-D, Being Itself, [B] efficient, formal, and final causality, and [C] the contents of the three links in the last few comments.

[4] Whatever evolution is, that path from non-being to being, of Dirt-To-Man, it is categorically different not only because of what is discussed in the link in the last comment (how odd that Non-Theists fight so hard against the idea of formal causes, whereas you want to claim them as your own non-theistic causal paradigm) but also because of the wider causal paradigm discussed in the several links in the comment preceding it.

Were it not for the fact of [3] and [4], we would find that [2] might have a chance, if “god” where not the Christian God.

However, [3] and [4] and even the contents of [1] must be added and, also, the Christian God is not the sort of *god* which you need for [2] to work.

Hence [2] becomes untenable.

Also: We’re glad that you conclude that immutable love defines all causation(s) and thereby agree with the Christian.

Irenicus,

Clarification:

The “contents of [1]” refers to the three links to Feser. [2] is simply untenable given such definitions, terms, and claims upon reality.

That is to say that where evolution (physicality) and where Man (the immaterial, or the “Adamic”) are concerned, the following is untenable:

“You cannot rationally maintain that God exists and A) we have libertarian free will but A) evolution cannot, not even in principle, be “unguided” – either “A” AND “B” are possible in a Universe where God exists, or neither “A” NOR “B” are possible.”

Whatever evolution is, that path from non-being to being, of Dirt-To-Man, it is categorically different not only because of what is discussed in the link in the last comment (how odd that Non-Theists fight so hard against the idea of formal causes, whereas you want to claim them as your own non-theistic causal paradigm) but also because of the wider causal paradigm discussed in the several links in the comment preceding it.

“As-If” intentionality and so on ~~~ comment #261

Irenicus,

Glucose molecules (or whatever) and the Minded Agent have some inherent differences where intentionality is concerned and hence where efficient and formal and final causes are concerned. Just because you fail to differentiate what efficient, formal, and final causality entail within material and evolution, and just because you fail to differentiate that un-minded glucose molecule (or whatever) from the Minded with respect to inherent intentionality and the volitional and immaterial Will, and just because by doing so you set up a false dichotomy, that is no reason to think that your A and B are of any significance. They are simply not reflective of what is going on within the Christian paradigm and that is why your hammering away with your false dichotomy of a kind of bizarre form of total freedom vs. a kind of bizarre form of total determinism is simply of no consequence as it’s expressly built atop Non-Christian terms. Such lacks the Christian’s “compatible” (there’s a nice word) collocation of causes with that middle way as per the discussions in the three Feser links which avoid your clear and obvious false dichotomy.

The differences there and elsewhere find your thought experiment irrelevant.

[Your totally free and your totally unguided] vs. [your totally un-free and your totally determined] premises are simply not found inside of the Christian paradigm and hence it presents a dichotomy which the Christian just doesn’t find very interesting. Hence it’s irrelevant to the way the world works and the way Man is with respect to the Christian’s causal paradigm.

Also, not only that, but you seem to equate all of that as if it’s all the “same” level, degree, or whatever both in dirt/material interfaces with such bizarre “causation” and in mind/immaterial interfaces with such bizarre “causation”.

Irenicus,

Perhaps if you unpacked this business of total freedom / total unguided with respect to “Being Itself” and causation (Etc.) and this business of totally unfree and totally determined with respect to “Being Itself” and causation? Also, perhaps if you unpacked it wrt “dirt/unminded” verses the “minded agent” as well?

It is, as it stands, a false dichotomy.

That doesn’t mean you can’t change definitions and make a valid dichotomy (which is what you’ve done). Anyone can do that with any thought experiment.

But one is then talking about *god* and not God.

Etc……

Irenicus,

Feser’s three links give a basic framework of the causal paradigm which doesn’t find a good reason to apply the terms of your thought experiment.

Well, if you don’t want to unpack the terms and nuances of your causal paradigm wrt “dirt/unminded” things and wrt “minded agents”, then thanks for your time.

[1] God exists. Nothing can, in any possible universe, stand isolated from God.

[2] Man’s path (evolution or any other path) from non-being to being cannot be unguided. Efficient, formal, and final causes (…and so on…) exist. This is not the case in the causal paradigm of “Physics – Full Stop”.

[3] We have free will. God does not determine our decisions. The created Will – the created Self – the Minded Agent – inherently and volitionally chooses.

In the 3 Feser links from earlier, we don’t find the “totally free of God” nor the “totally determined by God”. Not with respect to dirt or un-minded things nor with respect to minded agents.

That’s the primary premise being supported here.

In *any* path from non-being to being we are forced into conclusions about Man given the contents of that path.

A universe soaked through with the unending and immutable continuum of causation that is “Physics — Full Stop” forces upon us conclusions about Man that are very different conclusions than the conclusions about Man which are forced upon us inside of a universe soaked through with the causal paradigm described in the three Feser links.

Man’s path from Non-Being to Being:

[1] God exists. Nothing can, in any possible universe, stand isolated from God.

[2] Man’s path (evolution or any other path as per the three Feser links) from non-being to being cannot be unguided in that efficient, formal, and final causes (…and so on…) exist. This is not the case in the causal paradigm of “Physics – Full Stop”.

[3] We have free will. God does not determine our decisions. The created Will – the created Self – the Minded Agent – inherently and volitionally chooses. The “As-If intentionality” of comment #261 and #262 is a non-player in the Christian’s causal paradigm.

Earlier in the thread we found the all too common magical thinking of the Non-Theist insisting that while physics, evolution, genes, and atoms (or whatever) don’t “want” and don’t’ “love” and don’t “intend”, and don’t “reason” and are not “rational”, and so on, Man in what he *is* at his ontological rock-bottom still *is* all of the above . Yet we have no intellectually sound response to comment #261 / #262 which can get the Non-Theist to an ontological rock-bottom of that which inherently and volitionally chooses for there are always more layers beyond the Non-Theist’s supposed “ontological rock-bottom” in all of his own arbitrary stopping points. He never wants to unpack his unjustified edifice of “the heart” but only wants to claim a sort of “As-If” the heart pumping blood is the ontologically irreducible rock-bottom of what is going on, right now, this minute, inside of Man’s chest – Full Stop. Whether Chests or Skulls the inexplicable arbitrariness of his stopping points is nothing more than evasion and question begging.

The Non-Theist (almost) wants to claim for himself the causal paradigm described in the three Feser links such that his own limited causation driving the Whole-Show within his limited “Physics – Full Stop” can somehow escape comment #261 / #262 silicon chips and their irreducibly non-rational, non-intentional, and non-loving causations in what they *are* in the Non-Theist’s causal paradigm’s rock-bottom. That’s a proper and worthy goal given that he is trying to avoid the absurdities force upon him should he deny the undeniable but the problem is that nothing the Non-Theist presents us with gets him out of the “As-If Intentionality” (comment #261, #262) nor out of the “As-If Volitional” and into a landscape within the “inherently at rock bottom” which we find in, by, and through the “irreducibility” of volition, will, love, the-good, and so on found in the three Feser links (etc.).

It’s bizarre as such equivocation / question begging forces the Non-Theist into a sort of “As-If” the heart pumping blood is the ontologically irreducible rock-bottom of what is going on, right now, this minute, inside of Man’s chest – Full Stop – because, per the Non-Theist, somehow, we know not how,

“….we are not identical to the process that made us….”

Such was initially preceded by this:

“I´d recommend to reflect a little more about the differences between “process that created x” and “x itself”…..”

In this sense he fully equates the causal paradigm (ad infinitum) of [A] “Physics — Full Stop” which describes the entire ontology of what Man “is” and which describes the entirety of what is going on inside of Man, right now, this minute, from the surface of his skin down to the “rock-bottom” within all causation inside his skull (on the one hand) with [B] the causal paradigm forcing us into the ontological landscape of final causes (first) and finally (thereby) into Immutable Love (Trinity) ad infinitum which describes the entire ontology of what Man “is” (on the other hand) and which describes causation inside of him there at what *is* his ontological rock bottom.

In the three Feser links we find that Man’s path from non-being to being can include evolution, which is one of the reasons the three links were added here. Of course, efficient, formal, and final cause are not and cannot be accounted for in the Non-Theist’s paradigm, thereby there is “totally free of God” in the term “evolution” once we unpack that statement that evolution can be included. The problem is that Irenicus (first) states that those three Feser links were random and unrelated to this discussion (….his own personal agenda gets the better of him sometimes….but of course we all wrestle with that…..) and (second), even if he read them his reasoning (still) just sort of stops there in evolution – as if (we keep running into that phrase) that’s the entire show of the causal paradigm which the three links describe – and hence he (Ireniscus) ignores the surrounding context of *why* Man is, even if a traveler of that path (evolution) in the journey from non-being to being, still yet a traveler of far more. What happens at Q-R-S of the Alphabet isn’t the entirety of A through Z and hence without that “far more” there just is no [B] to speak of, there is only [A].

Hence, without [B], we only have:

[No-God = No-God], which is true, trivial, and uninteresting.

As #307 alludes to, Man’s path from non-being to being begins with the principle of proportionate causality with respect to Being Itself, and of course therein we discover as we travel from non-being to being that which is love’s ceaseless reciprocity within Trinity surrounding, filling, and ontologically defining the Imago Dei from the ground up or, if it helps, from the dirt up. And, of course, *none* of that is anything which “Physics — Full Stop” can ever hope to comprehend, much less fashion.

In *any* path from non-being to being we are forced into conclusions about Man given the ontological contents of that path. We cannot just arbitrarily stop short of the A and the Z of our own particular ontological chain of continuity. Doing so leads first to the fatal pains of circularity and secondly to a kind of dishonesty.

A universe soaked through with the unending and immutable continuum of causation that is “Physics — Full Stop” forces upon us conclusions about Man that are very different conclusions than the conclusions about Man which are forced upon us inside of a universe soaked through with the causal paradigm described in the three Feser links.

The following links (plus one more) were referenced, and while our Non-Theist friend claims they are random and unrelated, even as they address evolution specifically, they are quite informative as to the conclusions about Man which this or that particular ontological chain of continuity forces us into:

[1] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/01/metaphysical-middle-man.html
[2] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/12/causality-pantheism-and-deism.html#more
[3] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/11/tls-and-formal-causes.html
[4] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/07/carroll-on-laws-and-causation.html

scbrownlhrm

thereby there is *no* “totally free of God” in the term “evolution” once we unpack that statement that evolution can be included

scb-rule

My conclusion stands:
“You cannot rationally maintain that God exists and A) we have libertarian free will but A) evolution cannot, not even in principle, be “unguided” – either “A” AND “B” are possible in a Universe where God exists, or neither “A” NOR “B” are possible.”
– and you offered nothing whatsoever to rebut it.

scbrownlhrm

“….thereby there is *no* “totally free of God” in the term “evolution” once we unpack that statement that evolution can be included….”

scb-rule

We have free will. God does not determine our decisions.

And if that is at least conceptually possible, then it logically must be the case that it is similarly possible that changes in evolutionary trajectories are not determined by God. And if evolutionary trajectories are not guided by God or any other being, then evolution is “unguided”.
There is no way for you to get around that conclusion. You can try to burn your “totally free from God” straw men as often as you like, it won´t change the fact that this is just another confirmation of the scb-rule (see #324) which does not rebut my conclusion:
“You cannot rationally maintain that God exists and A) we have libertarian free will but A) evolution cannot, not even in principle, be “unguided” – either “A” AND “B” are possible in a Universe where God exists, or neither “A” NOR “B” are possible.”
– in any way whatsoever.